THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


Ex  Libris 


ISAAC   FOOT     < 


ITALY  OLD  AND  NEW 


BY   THE   SAME  AUTHOR 

THE  LIFE  AND  LETTERS  OF 
JAMES   MONROE  TAYLOR 

President  of  Vassar  College 
1886-1914 

The   Biography  of  an  Educator 
E.   P.   DUTTON   &   COMPANY 


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SIRMIO 


ITALY  OLD  AND  NEW 


BY 

ELIZABETH  HAZELTON  HAIGHT 

PROFESSOR  OF  LATIN,  VASSAR  COLLEGE 


LONDON 
STANLEY  PAUL  &  CO. 

31,  Essex  Street,  Strand,  W.C.  2 


\JGt  ^m 


All  Rights  Reserved 


To 

BRUNO    ROSELLI 

che  fa  del  suo  lavoro  aureo  anello  fra  Italia  e  America 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAG  8 

I.    A  Piazza  in  Rome 1 

II.    Due  Cuori,  Una  Capanna 9 

III.  The  Joys  of  an  Orario 14 

IV.  The  Madonna  of  Pompeii 30 

V.    A  Visit  to  Ancient  Ostia 38 

VI.     Italian  Crowds  and  Their  Temper   ...  55 

VII.    Tea-drinking  in  Rome 71 

VIII.    The  Aspirations  of  Italian  Women  ...  80 

IX.     La  Bella  Zara 90 

X.     Epic  Days 97 

XL     Spring  in  Sicily  and  the  Carrying  Off  of 

the  Maid 108 

XII.     Re-reading  Catullus  in  Sirmio 146 

XIII.  The  Rome  that  Horace  Knew 161 

XIV.  Slabsides  and  the  Sabine  Farm 185 

XV.    Ovid  in  Sulmona 194 

XVI.    Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy 207 


Vll 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Sirmio Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

Evander's  Capanna 12 

Maria's  Children 12 

At  Hadrian's  Villa 18 

A  Street  Scene  in  Tivoli 18 

The  Theater  at  Tusculum 26 

Opening  the  Child's  Grave  at  Cerveteri 26 

At  Ariccia,  Near  Lake  Nemi 48 

A  Floor  Mosaic  in  the  Baths  at  Ostia 48 

The  Statue  of  Minerva- Victoria  at  Ostia     ....  52 

The  Cathedral  at  Ancona,  Struck  by  an  Austrian  Bomb 

the  Day  After  War  Was  Declared 90 

The  Gate  at  Zara 90 

Market-Day  at  Zara 94 

The  Fiumani  on  Duty  at  D'Annunzio's  Palace  .      .      .  104 

The  Fiume-Susak  Bridge 104 

The  Transformed  Temple  of  Athena  at  Syracuse     .      .  128 

The  Prehistoric  Ruin  at  Cefalu 138 

Eleusis— The  Carrying  Off  of  the  Maid 138 

Catullus'   Sirmio 146 

ix 


x  Illustrations 


FACINO 
PAGE 


The  Old  Wall  at  Vicovaro 182 

"The  Villa  of  Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus"     ....  182 

Sulmona 204 

Ovid  in  Sulmona 204 

Vergil  in   Mantua    . 210 

Plowing  in  the  Sabine  Country 218 

The  Temple  of  Jupiter  Anxur  Above  Terracina     .      .  218 


ITALY  OLD  AND  NEW 


ITALY  OLD  AND  NEW, 


A  PIAZZA  IN  ROME 

ONE  of  my  greatest  joys  in  Rome  has  been  my 
window.  Not  that  my  room  boasts  fair  case- 
ment or  bright  stained  glass  through  which 
light  filters  across  floor  in  patterns  or  in  pictures.  My 
window  does  not  shut  me  in  with  beauty  but  leads  me 
out  to  life.  It  is  a  high  casement  window,  for  though 
this  study  in  the  Pensione  Girardet  by  strange  Italian 
calculation  is  said  to  be  on  the  third  floor  of  the  old 
Palazzo,  it  is  reached  by  six  long,  turning  flights  of 
stairs  and  when  in  the  morning  I  fling  open  my  shutters, 
I  stand  face  to  face  with  the  saints  on  the  roof  of  Santa 
Maria  Maggiore's  choir.  Greeting  them,  I  lean  out 
and  look  eastward  to  see  if  Monte  Cavo's  crested 
height  shoVs  clear  against  the  sky,  omen  of  fair  day, 
and  then  turning  westward  I  salute  the  statue  of  Gari- 
baldi on  the  Janiculum.  So  my  day  starts  with  all 
Italy  from  the  Alban  Mount  to  the  War  of  Inde- 
pendence spread  out  before  me. 

I  would  never  live  anywhere  in  Rome  but  on  the 
Piazza  dell'  Esquilino.  Of  all  those  gentle  elevations 
which  were  once  the  seven  hills  of  the  Eternal  City, 
the  Esquiline  seems  to  stand  the  highest  now  and  the 
Campanile  of  Santa  Maria  Maggiore  towers  to  the 
stars  as  once  Maecenas'  palace  on  the  Esquiline  did. 

I 


2  Italy  Old  and  New 

Still  from  here  a  Nero  could  watch  Rome  burn,  and  I 
from  my  window  watch  Rome  live.  This  beautiful 
square]  sloping  down  from  the  great  flight  of  steps  be- 
low the  choir  of  the  church  to  the  two  rows  of  green 
trees  that  line  the  street  of  Agostino  de  Pretis  oppo- 
site, is  an  epitome  of  Rome  of  the  centuries  and  Rome 
of  today. 

Here,  as  in  all  Italy,  the  background  of  the  modern 
drama  is  the  magnificent  past.  The  Piazza  takes  my 
eyes  and  thoughts  not  only  to  the  early  settlement  of 
Aeneas's  son  on  the  distant  Alban  hill  and  to  Gari- 
baldi, mounted  guard  forever  on  the  Janiculum  in  the 
name  of  liberty.  Thoughts  of  Roman  Empire  and  of 
Christian  church  fly  about  me  as  rapidly  as  the  swal- 
lows circle  overhead.  For  on  the  green  grass  oval  in 
the  center  of  the  Piazza  stands  an  obelisk  which  with 
its  twin,  now  on  the  Quirinal,  once  adorned  the  en- 
trance to  the  Mausoleum  of  Augustus,  the  emperor  of 
reconstruction  who  in  an  after-war  period  of  factional 
struggles  such  as  Italy  is  experiencing  today,  established 
a  peace  that  endured  for  centuries.  A  cross  tops  the 
obelisk  now  and  all  day  long  gay  little  Italian  children, 
the  wealth  of  Italy,  tumble  over  its  sunny  base,  but  the 
strength  of  its  shaft  is  a  symbol  of  the  Roman  genius 
for  empire-building,  and  makes  me  recall  the  message 
of  Augustus'  laureate-poet,  Vergil: 

"Remember,  O  Roman,  to  rule  the  people  with  thy 
power  (this  shall  be  thy  art)  and  to  establish  the  laws  of 
peace." 

The  Roman  laws  last  as  the  basis  of  our  jurispru- 
dence though  the  peace  of  the  world  is  often  broken  in 
a  universe  where  equity  has  to  depend  not  solely  on 
statutes  but  on  the  varying  virtues  of  human  beings. 


A  Piazza  in  Rome  3 

The  view  from  my  window  makes  me  think  not  only  of 
the  wise  Augustus  but  of  the  wanton  Nero,  for  there  is 
the  tower  which  bears  the  great  egoist's  name,  that 
distant,  massive,  square,  brick  Torre  delle  Milizie 
which  popular  tradition  threw  back  from  its  thirteenth 
century  origin  and  made  the  height  where  Nero  fiddled 
while  Rome  flamed.  The  corruption  of  such  rulers,  the 
effeminate  fashions  they  set  for  the  populace  they  en- 
slaved gave  to  the  church  her  chance  and  she  sought  to 
save  the  souls  of  Italy  before  she  attempted  to  govern 
her. 

That  delicate  square  Campanile  above  the  trees 
marks  one  of  the  earliest  meeting-places  of  the  Chris° 
tians  in  Rome,  for  the  church  of  Santa  Pudenziana 
stands  (all  evidence  goes  to  show)  over  the  house  of 
Pudens,  father  of  Pudenziana  and  Prassede,  where  St. 
Peter  is  supposed  to  have  lived,  the  Pudens  whom  St. 
Paul  mentioned  just  before  his  death  in  his  second  let- 
ter to  Timothy.  You  can  prowl  down  under  the  church 
and  see  where  the  walls  and  the  bath  of  a  little  old  Ro- 
man house  have  been  excavated.  Then  you  can  look  at 
St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  done  in  the  fourth  century 
mosaics  in  the  church  above  and  find  the  quaint  figures 
of  Santa  Pudenziana  and  her  father  over  the  doorway. 
No  church  in  Rome  takes  me  nearer  to  pure  apostolic 
times  and  the  beginnings  of  the  faith.  Santa  Maria 
Maggiore  to  be  sure  in  its  interior  preserves  the  fourth 
century  basilica  plan,  but  even  the  cool  magnificence  of 
its  gray  columns  of  Hymettus  marble  suggests  the 
splendor  of  the  church,  and  the  whole  edifice,  built  and 
rebuilt  down  to  the  seventeenth  century,  is  a  monument 
to  the  development  of  papal  power  rather  than  to  early 
faith.  Yet  Santa  Maria  Maggiore  is  my  church  from 
dear  familiarity  and  I  have  heard  angelic  music  there  on 


4  Italy  Old  and  New 

Christmas  and  on  Easter,  and  on  August  fifth  I  have 
watched  the  repetition  of  the  miracle  of  the  snow  which, 
falling  here  on  one  hot  summer  day,  revealed  to  two 
of  the  faithful  the  place  where  a  church  must  be  built 
to  our  Lady  of  the  Snowflakes.  To  me  all  religion  be- 
ing one  aspiration  towards  the  divine,  though  often  I 
gi\e  my  ear  only  to  sermons  in  stones,  again  "I  like  a 
church,  I  like  a  cowl"  and  I  can  understand  how  here  in 
Italy  the  beauty  of  the  services  gave  and  gives  the 
church  her  hold. 

My  window  in  Rome  encourages  many  musings  but 
not  long  ones,  for  its  kaleidoscope  shifts  too  rapidly. 
Really  only  in  the  early  morning  are  my  eyes  allowed 
to  notice  the  fixed  background  of  the  square,  its  distant 
views,  the  great  church  with  its  two  domes  and  pointed 
tower,  the  Palazzo  opposite,  the  little  oval  shrine  to 
the  Madonna  above  the  Strega  sign  over  the  corner 
shop,  the  flower-stand  bright  with  roses  and  carnations, 
the  cabmen  waiting  contentedly  in  their  carriages  un- 
der the  trees.  Socn  the  "Bar  Esquilino"  at  the  corner 
has  its  tables  and  chairs  out  on  the  sidewalk  and  the 
coffee-sippers  gather.  In  the  Piazza,  the  babies  arrive 
with  their  Sabine  nurse-girls,  picturesque  in  their  full 
gay  skirts,  lace-edged  aprons,  white  kerchiefs  crossed 
on  deep  bosoms,  bright  turbans,  coral  necklaces  and 
ear-rings.  Beggars,  halt,  blind,  ragged,  amble  past 
with  outstretched  hands.  Peasant  women  walk  by, 
carrying  on  their  heads  long,  flat  baskets  piled  high 
with  vegetables.  An  aeroplane  circles  overhead. 
Crowded  street-cars  squeak  painfully  up  the  hill.  And 
always  on  the  steps  of  S.  Maria  Maggiore  people  are 
passing  or  loitering. 

The  life  that  goes  on  upon  the  steps  of  the  church! 
Here  a  woman  is  selling  cherries  where  in  the  fall  one 


A  Piazza  in  Rome  5 

roasted  chestnuts  over  tiny  charcoal  fire.  One  group 
of  boys  is  busy  with  a  game  of  cards.  Two  urchins  are 
playing  mora,  shouting  numbers  and  waving  lively 
hands.  Soldiers  take  their  siestas  stretched  full  length 
on  back  or  face.  Men  eat  their  lunches,  spreading 
eggs,  cheese,  bread  out  on  the  steps  before  them.  In  a 
corner,  a  shrivelled  old  rag-picker  sorts  her  motley  col- 
lections. Even  in  the  evening  under  the  street-light  at 
the  corner  men  sit  reading  their  paper.  One  rainy  day 
five  cold  little  boys  tried  to  make  a  bonfire  of  news- 
papers in  the  sheltered  doorway.  Every  day  in  and 
out  among  the  priests  and  the  laymen  going  up  the  steps 
to  their  devotions,  the  children  weave  their  games. 

Then  the  steps  make  an  excellent  rostra  for  political 
meetings,  the  orator  standing  at  the  top,  the  crowd  in 
rows  on  the  steps  below.  One  such  comizio  I  attended 
at  the  time  of  the  municipal  elections  in  October  when 
a  representative  of  the  Partito  Popolare  appealed  for 
votes.  It  was  a  time  when  all  the  other  parties  had 
united  to  defeat  the  clericals  and  the  Socialists  and  the 
Partito  Populare  (the  clerical)  had  a  difficult  task  to 
make  a  strong  appeal  for  votes  against  the  united  force 
of  the  nationalist  block.  I  was  interested  to  see  how  first 
this  orator  claimed  for  his  party  the  alliance  with  law 
and  order  for  which  his  opponents  stood,  by  disavowing 
any  affiliation  with  the  Russian  Socialism  which,  he 
said,  had  become  a  new  tyranny  with  a  new  god,  Lenin. 
The  speaker  stated  frankly  that  his  Party  asked  votes 
on  no  platform,  but  against  revolution  and  civil  war  in 
Italy;  that  they  believed  in  a  future  syndicalism  which 
would  better  the  living  conditions  of  the  laborer,  but 
that  now  the  people  must  show  that  those  who  worked 
with  their  hands  had  a  cherished  idealism;  so  in  its 
name  he  appealed  to  them  and  in  the  name  of  liberty 


6  Italy  Old  and  New. 

and  democracy.  There  were  a  few  ardent  youths  on 
the  steps  behind  the  orator  who  occasionally  cried 
"Viva  la  Russia,"  "Viva  Lenin,"  but  they  were  prompt- 
ly hissed  down  by  the  crowd.  Off  at  one  side  of  the 
church  in  the  Via  Manin  I  suddenly  saw  two  long  lines 
of  mounted  guards,  so  perhaps  their  presence  helped 
maintain  decorum,  but  as  I  listened,  I  felt  that  free 
speech  was  the  order  of  the  hour  and  that  the  speaker 
was  voicing  the  real  ideas  of  his  party. 

It  was  perhaps  in  answer  to  that  meeting  that  after 
dark  two  or  three  nights  later  some  sacrilegious  person 
painted  on  the  base  of  the  church  wall  at  the  top  of  the 
steps  in  black  letters  a  foot  high:  "Qui  regna  il  falso," 
"here  reigns  the  false."  When  I  looked  out  the  next 
morning,  two  priests  were  trying  to  scrape  off  the 
words,  but  the  shadow  of  them  is  still  there,  indelible 
sign  of  the  political  clashes  of  today  in  which  the  church 
still  has  its  part. 

Not  only  at  election  times  is  the  Piazza  occupied  with 
politics.  I  called  it,  indeed,  my  political  barometer,  for 
the  security  or  insecurity  of  the  government  has  been  in- 
dicated by  the  number  of  guards  about  the  residence  of 
the  Minister  of  the  Interior.  Giolitti  lives  at  the  cor- 
ner of  the  Via  Cavour  and  under  his  windows  have  oc- 
curred demonstrations  for  all  sorts  of  causes  from  the 
price  of  bread  to  the  independence  of  Fiume.  The 
royal  guard  about  the  Piazza  was  tripled  or  quad- 
rupled at  times  of  crises, — the  discussion  of  the  Treaty 
of  Rapallo,  the  obstructionism  of  the  Socialists  against 
the  promised  increase  in  the  price  of  bread,  the  resigna- 
tion of  the  President  of  the  Camera,  the  "white  strike" 
of  the  postal  and  telegraph  employees.  At  such  a  time, 
when  I  came  back  to  the  Piazza  late  in  the  afternoon,  I 
found  pairs  of  resplendent  carabinieri  on  every  corner, 


A  Piazza  in  Rome  7 

the  royal  guard  patrolling  the  Via  Cavour,  and  in  front 
of  this  Palazzo  a  long  line  of  horsemen  wearing  their 
steel  helmets.  In  the  midst  of  such  a  handsome  caval- 
cade, I  felt  that  we  were  living  in  epic  days.  I  knew 
that  his  Excellency,  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  be- 
hind his  curtained  windows,  was  quietly  oblivious,  for 
nothing  had  disturbed  his  superhuman  calm.  I  pic- 
tured him  as  I  saw  him  once.  In  the  Chamber  of  Depu- 
ties a  heated  discussion  with  many  interpellations  was 
raging,  accompanied  by  the  violent  ringing  of  the  presi- 
dent's bell,  when  at  the  door  facing  the  house  appeared 
Italy's  grand  old  man.  Very  tall,  very  large,  very  erect 
and  proud,  the  white-haired  minister  of  seventy-eight 
moved  so  quietly  that  in  the  melee  of  that  excited  So- 
cialistic House  he  seemed  a  superman.  I  thought  of  an 
old  Greek  story:  "O  Iole,  when  you  saw  Hercules,  how 
did  you  know  that  he  was  a  god?"  "I  knew  because 
whether  he  walked  or  sat  or  whatever  thing  he  did,  he 
conquered."  That  is  the  personal  impression  that 
Giolitti  makes  and  explains  in  part  his  renewed  grip  on 
Italian  politics.  The  Minister  of  the  Interior  not  only 
knew  his  people  and  their  needs,  but  in  the  midst  of 
mercurial  and  ebullient  politicians  he  kept  his  calm  and 
won  his  victories.  Little  demonstrations  might  go  on 
in  the  Piazza  dell'  Esquilino  against  one  unpopular 
measure  or  another,  but  eventually  the  crowd  dis- 
persed, the  episode  was  over,  and  for  a  little  while 
quiet  settled  on  the  political  life  of  Italy  as  it  does  on 
the  Piazza  at  night. 

I  sometimes  think  I  love  my  Piazza  best  under  the 
stars.  The  pigeons  curl  under  the  cornice  of  Santa 
Maria  Maggiore.  Songs  float  up  from  peasants  in 
their  wine-carts  driving  their  donkeys  home.  A  gay 
band  of  University  students  gathers  on  the  church  steps 


8  Italy  Old  and  New 

and  in  mock  Saturnalia  invokes  pagan  gods:  "O  Bacco, 

0  Vino,  O  Venere."  A  battalion  of  soldiers  marches 
off  from  the  cascrma  near  to  the  invigorating  strains  of 
the  hvmn  of  Mameli.  Again  the  unbelievable  sound  of 
tinkling  sheep-bells  calls  me  from  bed  to  window  and 
there,  crossing  the  Piazza,  is  a  great,  huddling  brown 
flock  that  seems  to  creep  across  the  square.  The  sheep 
are  being  driven  back  from  winter  pastures  in  warm 
Calabria  to  cool  mountain  heights,  just  as  they  were  in 
Horace's  time.  I  picture  the  shepherds  with  their 
flocks  at  the  end  of  their  journey  by  some  cool  brook 
in  the  Sabine  hills  and  I  know  half  the  strength  of  Italy 
lies  beyond  Rome  in  her  sturdy  peasant  stock. 

I  stand  at  the  window  as  the  sound  of  the  sheep-bells 
grows  fainter  and  once  more  the  Piazza  sends  up  to  me 
thoughts  of  Alban  Kings  and  Roman  emperors,  of 
popes  and  of  liberators,  of  priests  and  of  soldiers,  of 
parties  and  of  politicians,  of  children  and  of  contadini. 

1  say  to  myself:  The  depth  of  a  tree's  roots  guarantees 
its  life.  Or  I  reflect  in  Horace's  more  Roman  figure: 
This  ship  of  state  will  weather  all  storms.  Then  sud- 
denly I  see  a  gleam  from  the  light-house  on  the  Janicu- 
lum,  the  Faro  that  was  given  by  the  Italians  of  Argen- 
tina on  September  20,  1921,  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of 
the  birth  of  United  Italy,  and  the  flashing  of  the  red, 
the  white  and  the  green  brings  to  me  the  same  message 
that  it  carries  to  the  sailors  at  sea,  the  glad,  abiding  cer- 
tainty "There  is  Rome." 


II 

"due  cuori,  una  capanna" 

"Aude,  hospes,  contemnere  opes  et  te  quoque  dignum 
finge  deo,  rebusque  veni  non  asper  egenis." 

"Dare,  my  guest,  to  despise  wealth,  shape  yourself  also 
to  be  worthy  of  deity  and  come  graciously  to  my  poor 
fortune."  Aen.  VIII,  364-5. 

VANDER  was  nearly  home.  He  had  ridden  in 
to  Terracina  to  buy  a  bag  of  flour  and  his  little 
^A  donkey  was  lagging  wearily  in  the  warm  after- 
noon sunshine.  The  trip  from  Monte  Circeo's  base  to 
the  city  and  back  was  more  than  twenty  miles  and  the 
morning  ride  had  been  doubly  hard  because  of  a  pouring 
rain  and  the  mud  it  caused,  but  Evander's  last  backward 
look  before  Terracina  was  out  of  sight  had  found  a 
bright  rainbow  arching  over  Monte  Sant'  Angelo;  the 
sandy  road  through  the  Pomptine  marshes  had  dried 
quickly;  the  trailing  white  blossoms  of  the  thorn  hedges 
and  the  dashes  of  yellow  broom  by  the  roadside  were 
all  the  brighter  for  their  wetting;  and  Monte  Circeo 
towered  up  clear  and  grand  against  a  sunset  as  bright 
as  the  oranges  in  the  grove  just  ahead.  Evander 
shouted  to  urge  his  donkey  around  the  turn  in  the  road. 
Anna  heard  his  voice  and  was  standing  in  the  door  of 
the  capanna,  their  straw-hut,  when  he  first  caught  sight 
of  it.  A  slow  smile  broke  over  Evander's  face.  Once 
more  as  he  rode  on,  his  eyes  ran  over  every  detail  of 

9 


10  Italy  Old  and  New 

their  home  and  he  was  proud  of  the  work  of  his  hands. 
He  himself  alone  had  laid  the  ring  of  foundation-stones 
for  the  hut.  A  neighbor  had  helped  him  erect  the 
framework  of  young  tree-trunks  which  he  had  felled 
and  drawn  from  the  wood  near.  Then  on  the  frame 
he  had  placed  the  straw  in  many  layers  and  fastened 
it,  leaving  that  little  chimney-hole  towards  the  top  for 
the  smoke.  The  wooden  door  he  had  hammered  to- 
gether and  fitted  carefully  in  a  wooden  frame  with  a 
strong  bar  across  the  inside  before  he  had  brought 
Anna  to  live  with  him.  It  was  she,  however,  who  had 
insisted  on  having  that  little  cross  of  twigs  on  the  top 
for  another  sort  of  protection.  "Lightning  falls  and 
straw  burns,"  she  had  said.  "The  cross  will  help  us 
more  than  the  old  cow's  horns  that  you  have  put  up." 
Who  knows  ?    All  had  certainly  gone  well  with  them. 

It  had  been  good  fortune  first  that  he  had  secured  the 
spot  for  his  cap  ami  a  where  the  brook  ran  clear  in  front 
of  the  door  so  that  Anna  could  do  the  washing  without 
carrying  the  clothes  far.  The  orange  tree  that  he  had 
planted  by  the  door  was  bright  with  golden  fruit.  The 
prickly  pear  at  the  side  was  half  as  tall  as  the  hut,  and 
Anna's  vines  on  the  back  every  morning  opened  the 
white  flowers  that  she  loved.  Together  they  had  built 
the  second  capanna,  a  rough,  oblong  shelter  for  the 
donkey  in  time  of  storm,  and  now  that  they  had  a  pig, 
he  too  had  his  little  thatched  pen  where  they  could  se- 
cure him  at  nightfall.  They  had  just  finished  another 
small  hut  with  a  furnace  of  stones  in  it  so  that  Anna 
would  not  need  to  cook  in  the  Neighbor's  any  longer. 
So  he  had  gone  to  Terracina  to  buy  a  new  bag  of  flour 
to  celebrate  the  completion  of  their  stone  oven.  To- 
morrow there  would  be  fresh  bread.  Perhaps,  in  time, 
they  could  make  another  large  capanna  for  a  dining- 


"Due  Cuori,  Una  Capanna"        11 

room.  One  of  the  older  men  in  their  village  had  built 
one.    But  what  was  Anna  calling  to  him? 

"There  have  been  strangers  here." 

"Why  did  they  come?"  he  asked,  as  he  got  down 
from  his  donkey. 

"They  were  going  to  climb  Monte  Circeo  and  the 
rain  came  upon  them." 

"Did  you  ask  them  into  the  hut?"  questioned  Evan- 
der  anxiously. 

"I  invited  them  in  by  the  fire,  but,"  Anna  confessed, 
"  I  was  afraid  at  first,  so  I  raised  my  new  umbrella  and 
ran  out  to  hunt  the  pig  and  drive  him  into  his  pen  out 
of  the  storm." 

"Did  you  not  go  back  into  the  hut  and  keep  the  fire 
burning?"  Again  Evander  queried.  He  was  inside 
now  and  saw  that  there  was  a  bright  fire  in  the  circular 
stone-hearth  in  the  center  of  the  room.  A  pot  full  of 
savory  soup  was  steaming  over  it. 

"Yes,  my  husband,  I  returned  and  kept  putting  on 
more  sticks  from  the  dry  branches  under  our  beds.  The 
strangers  stayed  dry  and  warm  until  the  rain  stopped 
and  the  sun  came  back." 

"How  many  were  the  strangers,  Anna?  And  who 
were  they?" 

Evander  had  seated  himself  on  the  stone  threshold 
and  Anna  handed  him  a  great  bowl  of  soup  and  a  piece 
of  bread  before  she  went  on  with  her  story. 

"There  were  only  two,  man  and  woman,  and  they 
were  from  across  the  ocean,  from  the  United  States, 
not  our  people.  She  was  a  signorina,  for  she  had  no 
ring.  The  man  did  not  look  at  me;  he  saw  only  the 
American  woman,  but  she  looked  everywhere.  I  saw 
her  eyes  on  the  fire  and  the  pot  and  the  chimney-hole, 
on  our  two  beds  by  the  walls,  on  the  washing  on  the  line, 


12  Italy  Old  and  New 

on  the  knives  and  forks  stuck  in  the  straw,  on  my  new 
pan  hanging  on  a  nail  inside  the  door,  on  my  copper 
tub  hanging  on  the  tree  outside.1' 

"Did  they  say  nothing?"  asked  Evander.  "Or  could 
they  not  talk  our  language  ?" 

"The  man  could  not,  but  the  woman  could  under- 
stand me  and  could  talk  to  me  but  at  first  she  only 
looked  at  me.  Then  she  asked :  'Who  lives  with  you 
here?'  I  told  her:  'My  husband,  Evander.  He  has 
gone  to  Terracina  on  the  donkey  to  buy  flour  be- 
cause we  have  finished  our  new  stone-oven  and  tomor- 
row I  can  bake  bread  in  it.'  Then  she  said  to  me  very 
softly:  'Are  you  happy?'  'I  am  very  content,  Signorina,' 
I  told  her.  T  have  my  husband  and  this  hut  and  the 
orange-tree  and  the  stone-oven  and  my  new  umbrella. 
Did  you  see  the  blue  stripes  in  its  border?'  She  smiled, 
but  not  for  long.  She  was  always  sober,  the  signorina, 
and  the  man  kept  watching  her.  Then  she  asked  me : 
Ts  there  nothing  more  that  you  want?'  I  thought  a 
long  time.  Then  I  said:  'Maria,  our  Neighbor's  wife, 
has  a  sewing-machine.'  She  asked  if  Maria  used  it 
often  and  I  told  her,  'Yes.  Maria  makes  nice  clothes 
for  her  little  girls.  She  has  two  already.'  Then  her 
face  was  very  bright  suddenly  and  she  whispered  to 
me :  'I  love  children,'  but  she  said  nothing  more,  for 
the  sun  had  come  out  and  they  started  off  to  the  moun- 
tain. They  both  shook  hands  with  me  and  the  Signo- 
rina said  that  I  had  warmed  both  her  body  and  her 
heart,  and  she  hoped  I  would  always  be  happy." 

"You  have  done  well,"  commented  Evander  laconi- 
cally. "And  now  I  must  feed  the  donkey  and  we  will 
go  to  bed,  for  it  is  getting  dark  and  cold." 

About  two  months  later,  one  night  when  Evander 
came  back  from  work  in  the  fields,  he  saw  Anna  wav- 


EVANDER'S    CAPANNA 


MARIA'S   (IIIU)REN 


"Due  Cuori,  Una  Capanna"        13 

ing  her  head-kerchief  from  the  door,  and  her  sun- 
burned face  was  crimson  with  excitement  as  she  greeted 
him. 

"Evander,  Evander,  the  strangers  have  been  here 
again  and  have  brought  us  a  present." 

"What  strangers  do  you  mean?  What  have  they 
brought?" 

"Only  listen!  They  came  in  a  wagon,  the  American 
signor  and  signorina  of  the  storm.  The  driver  carried 
a  great  package  across  our  little  bridge  over  the  brook 
and  put  it  down  in  front  of  the  door.  While  he  untied 
it,  the  lady  said  to  me :  'We  have  come  to  thank  you 
again.  When  I  saw  how  happy  you  were  here  in  the 
capanna,  I  went  up  on  top  of  Monte  Circeo  and  told 
this  man  I  would  marry  him.  We  are  married  now 
and  this  is  a  wedding-present  that  we  have  brought 
you.'    Look  Evander !    It  is  a  Sewing  Machine." 

As  Evander  dropped  on  his  knees  in  amazement  be- 
fore the  shining  little  hand  machine  on  the  earth  floor, 
Anna  cried  ecstatically:  "Maria  will  teach  me  to  use 
it  and  I  can  make  pretty  little  dresses  before  the  baby 


Ill 

THE  JOYS  OF  AN  ORARIO 

IN  an  Italian  short-story  which  I  read  recently,  a 
wife  begins  a  little  domestic  comedy  by  saying  pet- 
tishly to  her  husband:  "There  is  always  an  Orario 
between  you  and  me."  For  my  part,  an  Orario  would 
be  a  bond  rather  than  a  barrier,  for  that  compact,  com- 
plete and  well-indexed  monthly  Italian  time-table  called 
the  Orario  Generale  is  one  of  my  most  fascinating  and 
time-consuming  companions.  I  pore  over  the  map,  the 
railroad-schedules,  the  automobile  service,  the  trolley- 
lines,  the  Navigazione  Maritima,  planning  jaunts 
through  Italy  and  on  her  lakes  and  seas.  Then,  like 
Alexander,  wishing  for  more  worlds  to  conquer,  I  only 
regret  that  there  is  as  yet  no  page  for  "Trasporti  con 
aeroplani,"  for  in  these  novel  geography  lessons  which 
I  am  taking  from  my  Orario  I  would  always  begin  my 
study  from  the  air.  When  I  did  manage  to  go  up  over 
Rome  for  twenty  minutes,  a  living,  colored  map  of  the 
city  lay  below  me,  clear  as  none  I  had  ever  seen  on 
paper, — the  shining  Tiber  curving  around  the  city,  the 
Colosseum  still  dwarfing  all  other  buildings,  even  St. 
Peter's  beautiful  pile.  Between  the  excitements  of  turn- 
ing in  a  high  wind  and  being  momentarily  lost  in  a 
cloud,  I  found  the  Forum  and  the  squares  and  the 
churches,  and  I  saw  the  lines  and  the  color  and  the  size 
of  all  Rome,  but  the  city  was  not  so  beautiful  as  the 
Campagna  from  whose  daisy-starred  grass  we  arose 
so  lightly.     I  shall  never  forget  the  soft  opaline  colors 

14 


The  Joys  of  an  Orario  15 

of  the  plain  below  and  the  blue,  cloud-hung  Sabine  and 
Alban  mountains  as  we  flew  as  a  bird  to  their  heights. 

But  let  me  drop  to  my  Orario  and,  as  a  proof  of  its 
fascination,  suggest  some  of  the  day-trips  about  Rome 
which  can  be  made  with  its  help.  I  plan  my  trips  for 
walkers  because  I  am  one  of  those  who  love  to  poke 
about  a  piedi — one  sees  more  and  hears  more — but 
there  are  virtually  always  carriages  or  donkeys  for 
those  who  wish  to  ride,  available  automobiles  save  time 
for  the  wealthy  and  hurried,  and  so  many  kinds  of  trips 
near  Rome  are  possible  that  all  tastes  can  be  suited. 
Let  me  plan  for  you,  O  Walker. 

You  will  wish  to  go  to  the  Campagna  first,  for 
whether  you  have  never  been  here  or  are  just  return- 
ing to  beloved  Italy,  there  lie  the  most  Roman  myste- 
ries and  beauties.  I  began  by  the  conventional  after- 
noon drive  in  a  little  carrozza  from  the  Colosseum  and 
the  Passeggiata  Archeologica  through  the  Porta  San 
Sebastiano  to  the  Scipios'  tomb  and  the  catacombs  and 
on  to  that  "great  round  tower  of  other  days"  whose 
romance  Byron  wrote  for  Caecilia  Metella.  Then  I 
made  my  driver  take  the  cross-road,  the  Strada  Mili- 
tare,  so  that  we  got  nearer  the  undulating  fields  of  grain 
and  poppies,  the  white  oxen  drawing  loads  of  hay,  the 
little  rivulet  Almo,  the  Sacred  Grove,  dark  and  awful 
on  its  mound,  and  went  on  to  the  Via  Latina  and  up 
along  its  huge  flat  paving  stones  to  the  two  tombs  of  the 
Valerii  and  the  Pancratii  (rarely  visited)  that  contain 
in  their  underground  chambers  some  of  the  most  ex- 
quisite of  Roman  decoration  in  stucco  relief  and  color. 

Such  a  drive  is  only  the  beginning  of  the  acquaint- 
ance with  the  Campagna  or  the  Appian  Way.  One  be- 
comes far  more  intimate  in  a  day's  walk  from  Albano 
into  Rome.     Take  an  early  train  from  the  Termini 


16  Italy  Old  and  New 

(Roma-Velletri  line),  carry  your  lunch,  and  give  your- 
self up  to  a  long  day,  walking  back  from  Albano  along 
the  Via  Appia  Antica  which  stretches  as  straight  as  the 
crow  flies  across  the  plain  to  Rome.  Take  time  to  be 
leisurely,  for,  as  Horace  wrote,  the  Appian  Way  is  less 
difficult  for  the  slow.  Old  paving-stones  are  hard  on 
the  feet  and  one  wishes  time  to  turn  and  enjoy  the 
beauty  of  the  hills,  to  browse  with  the  sheep,  to  pick 
pink  and  white  daisies,  to  read  inscriptions  on  tombs,  to 
let  color  and  light  paint  indelible  pictures  on  the  mind. 

Another  day  one  may  spend  on  the  Campagna  by 
taking  the  Rome-Fiuggi-Frosinone  line  to  Pantano  and 
walking  back  of  the  station  straight  across  country 
towards  the  great  golden  cella  of  the  Temple  of  Juno 
which  marks  the  site  of  old  Gabii.  You  remember  its 
legends, — how  treacherous  Sextus  Tarquinius  took  the 
city,  when  it  had  given  him  refuge  and  friendship,  by 
beheading  all  the  leading  men  as  his  father  had 
whipped  off  the  poppies'  heads  in  his  garden.  Now 
you  will  find  only  the  golden  temple  walls,  a  vague, 
grass-covered  street,  a  great  circular  basin  of  a  dried 
lake,  and  a  mediaeval  tower,  but  there  will  be  sheep 
grazing,  flowers  blooming,  birds  flying,  and  from  the 
level  stretches  of  the  green  and  gold  plain,  Soracte  and 
the  Sabine  hills  rise  blue  and  clear. 

After  such  a  walk,  go  back  to  Rome  and  seek  the 
studio  of  the  artist  of  the  Campagna,  Signor  Onorato 
Carlandi,  a  Garibaldian  of  seventy-eight  years,  who 
paints  with  the  fire  of  youth  in  his  fine  boldness  of  color, 
his  broad  effects  and  varied  moods,  and  who,  singing 
while  he  paints,  has  won  from  his  fellow-artists  the 
name  of  the  Cicala.  It  is  a  joy  to  see  his  water-colors 
and  oils  of  many  places  to  which  I  have  walked — Ha- 
drian's Villa  with  sunlight  falling  bright  on  marble  ruins 


The  Joys  of  an  Orario  17 

beside  dark  cypresses,  the  swirling  Anio,  the  tawny 
Tiber,  a  road  bordered  with  almond  trees  in  full,  pink 
blossom — but  most  of  all  I  adore  the  pictures  of  the 
Campagna :  the  Sacred  Grove  towering  dark  in  the 
mist,  or  the  plain  stretching  a  blaze  of  color  with  the 
scarlet  of  the  poppies,  or  the  lavender  of  the  thistles, 
or  the  yellow  of  the  genestra,  and  in  such  brilliancy 
rows  of  aqueducts,  ancient  tombs,  mediaeval  towers, 
and,  beyond,  the  lines  of  violet  mountains.  When  I 
asked  Signor  Carlandi  if  he  had  ever  painted  in  Dal- 
matia,  he  said  characteristically:  "No,  Signorina,  I 
rarely  leave  the  Campagna.  For  me  a  love  is  greater 
when  it  is  life-long  and  absorbing.  Mine  leaves  room 
for  no  other.  To  be  sure,  I  have  painted  some  little 
things  in  England,  but  those  were  only  slight  infideli- 
ties." 

Many  a  day-trip  from  Rome  develops  the  acquaint- 
ance begun  by  these  first  introductions  to  the  Cam- 
pagna, for  long  train  rides  give  new  views  on  the  way 
to  the  Sabine  or  the  Alban  Hills.  Rushing  tourists 
"do"  Hadrian's  Villa  and  Tivoli  in  a  day,  but  for  real 
enjoyment  one  needs  a  day  for  each  and  then  another 
for  Horace's  Sabine  country.  A  steam  tram,  starting 
from  the  Porta  Tiburtina,  arrives  at  the  Villa  Adriana 
in  an  hour.  One  does  not  need  to  be  an  archaeologist 
to  find  pleasure  in  wandering  about  Hadrian's  great 
country  palace,  for  ruined  walls,  broken  columns, 
gnarled  olives,  aspiring  cypresses,  distant  mountains 
and  Italian  sky  combine  and  recombine  in  pictures  of  a 
satisfying  beauty  even  if  imagination  is  not  reconstruct- 
ing and  repeopling  stadion,  theater,  library,  baths, 
nymphaeum  and  all  the  rest  of  the  imperial  labyrinth, 
or  thinking  perhaps  of  the  story  of  handsome,  tragic 
Antinous, 


18  Italy  Old  and  New 

On  another  day,  let  the  same  tram  line  carry  you  to 
Tivoli  and  start  early,  for  there  is  much  to  sec.  When 
the  trolley  stops,  take  just  a  look  at  the  Giardino  Gari- 
baldi for  the  sake  of  the  noble  inscription,  then  go  at 
once  to  the  Villa  D'Este  which  is  close  by,  look  at  the 
fresco  decorations  in  the  Casino  and  walk  all  over  the 
park  until  you  have  heard  the  varying  strains  of  all  the 
waterfalls  from  the  great  one  that  feeds  the  three  bagn'i 
to  the  little  ones  that  keep  the  maiden-hair  fresh  in  the 
walk  of  a  hundred  fountains.  Then  return  to  the  log- 
gia of  the  villa  and  sit  for  a  while  with  the  views  of  the 
magnificent  old  cypresses  below  and  the  white  road 
that  winds  across  the  Campagna  straight  to  St.  Peter's 
dome. 

You  must  not  sit  too  long,  for  with  a  glance  at  two 
pictures  in  Tivoli's  Santa  Maria  Maggiore,  you  should 
saunter  through  the  town  to  the  street  of  the  Duomo, 
send  some  stray  child  for  the  custode  of  the  new  ex- 
cavations and  get  a  look  at  two  interesting  ancient 
rooms,  one  beautifully  decorated  in  marbles,  the  other 
with  a  seated  statue  of  Augustus  which  is  broken,  but 
worth  studying.  After  that,  if  you  are  not  misled  into 
buying  a  huge  copper  water-jar  with  two  handles  which 
you  can  never  carry  on  your  head,  as  the  Sabine  women 
do,  to  America,  follow  the  main  street  up  to  near  the 
Ponte  Gregoriano  and  turning  off  to  the  left,  go  to  the 
Albergo  della  Sibilla.  There  you  can  eat  lunch  in  a 
garden  beside  the  famous  little  round  temple,  listening 
to  the  sound  of  the  falls  in  the  deep  green  gorge  below. 
After  dreaming  a  little  to  that  music,  go  to  the  Villa 
Gregoriano  and  while  it  is  still  hot,  visit  the  charming 
little  Museum  for  its  few  treasures  of  ancient  sculpture 
(ivy-wreathed  column,  bust  of  Julius  Caesar)  and  its 
few  choice  pictures.    The  custode's  son  has  made  a  ter- 


AT   HADRIAN'S   VILLA 


A    STREET   SCENE    IX    TIVOL] 


The  loys  of  an  Orario  19 

raced  garden  behind  the  Museum  over  the  Anio  which 
you  may  see  for  fifty  centesimi  and  he,  while  picking 
violets  for  you,  will  tell  you  his  experiences  as  a  soldier. 
Then  you  will  take  the  green  and  winding  walk  down 
to  the  cool  depths  of  the  gorge,  to  the  foot  of  the  falls 
and  the  great  cave,  and  after  ascending  you  can  go  on  to 
where  the  "new  cascade"  has  flung  its  delicate  long 
white  veil  across  the  rocks.  The  day  will  not  be  com- 
plete without  walk  or  drive  across  the  Anio  along  the 
Via  delle  Cascatelle,  for  here  are  beautiful  views  of 
Tivoli's  two  greater  falls  and  here,  tradition  says, 
Catullus,  Horace  and  Quintilius  Varus  all  had  villas 
(Thomas  Ashby's  articles  in  the  "Papers  of  the  British 
School  at  Rome"  and  the  "Journal  of  Roman  Studies" 
will  tell  you  where) .  Be  sure  to  stop  at  the  little  church 
of  Sant'  Antonio  to  see  the  quaint  votive  paintings  and 
don't  turn  back  before  reaching  the  farther  side  of  the 
great  platform  on  which  Varus'  villa  stood,  for  the  sake 
of  the  view  across  the  Campagna. 

There  are  three  trips  in  the  Alban  mountains  that 
you  should  not  miss :  to  Monte  Cavo  and  Lake  Nemi, 
to  the  Lago  d'  Albano,  to  Frascati  and  Tusculum.  The 
crested  top  of  Monte  Cavo  had  challenged  me  for  days 
before  I  finally  said:  "I  will  conquer  you"  and  con- 
sulted my  Orario  as  to  method  of  approach.  The  start 
is  slow,  by  train  from  Porta  S.  Giovanni  with  three 
changes  at  Bivio  Grotta  Ferrata,  at  Valle  Violata,  at 
Valle  Oscura  where  the  funicular  starts  for  Rocca  di 
Papa,  but  after  that  the  walk  is  a  gradual  climb  and  the 
descent  to  Nemi  as  easy  as  to  Avernus  if  you  have  com- 
mon sense,  map  and  compass.  On  the  way  up,  there  are 
some  of  the  largest  trees  I  have  seen  in  Italy  and  the 
path  goes  through  real  woods  with  an  occasional  view 
back  across  the  Campagna  to  Rome,  a  white  city  glisten- 


20  Italy  Old  and  New 

ing  rosily  from  the  morning  sun  in  the  pale  blue  dis- 
tance. We  had  glimpses  too  of  Lago  d'Albano 
through  the  trees  and  finally  as  we  walked  up  over  the 
great  blocks  of  the  old  Via  Triumphalis,  we  came  to  a 
marvellous  view  of  both  Lago  d'Albano  and  Lago 
Nemi,  glistening  like  gems  set  in  green  hills,  of  distant 
mountains,  of  little  cities  dotting  the  Campagna,  of 
great  Rome  and  beyond  all,  the  gleaming  line  of  the 
sea.  That  view  was  the  treasure  of  the  day,  more  than 
the  ancient  moss-covered  wall  and  the  huge  tree  at  the 
top,  but  all  the  walk  was  its  own  reward  even  to  the  end 
of  the  trail.  We  followed  it  down  through  the  woods 
to  Nemi,  dirty  and  picturesque  over  the  lake,  and  then 
around  the  lake  to  the  left  (by  footpath,  not  high-road) 
through  strawberry  gardens  and  woods  festooned  with 
ivy  and  brightened  by  rose-pink  cyclamen  on  to  Gen- 
zano.  There  we  had  tea  on  the  vine-covered  terrace 
of  the  Albergo  Belvedere  over  Diana's  haunted  and 
mystic  lake. 

For  a  nearer  view  of  Lago  d'Albano  take  the  train 
from  the  Termini  to  Castel  Gandolfo  (an  hour's  ride) 
and  walk  first  up  the  road  to  the  green  slope  below  the 
Capuchin  monastery  for  the  wide  view  of  lake  and 
Monte  Cavo  across.  Here  you  can  eat  lunch.  Then, 
retracing  your  steps,  find  the  gate  of  the  Villa  Barbe- 
rini  on  the  left  and  try  to  get  permission  to  see  the  ruins 
of  Domitian's  villa  and  the  enchanting  garden  where 
among  great  ilexes  scarlet  camelias  flame,  fountains 
play,  and  vistas  open  to  the  Campagna.  For  the  ven- 
turesome it  is  worth  while  after  leaving  the  Villa  Bar- 
berini  to  go  down  by  the  foot-path  at  the  south  end  of 
the  village  to  the  edge  of  the  lake  and  try  to  find  the 
elusive  custode  of  the  Emissario.  We  arrived  at  his 
gypsy  looking  cave-house  near  the  water  only  to  learn 


The  Joys  of  an  Orario  21 

from  a  small  girl  that  he  was  off  working  in  the  fields, 
"molto  lontano"  and  had  forgotten  to  leave  the  key,  so 
there  was  nothing  for  us  to  do  but  scale,  like  human 
flies,  the  high  and  crumbling  wall  that  surrounds  the 
entrance  of  the  famous  tunnel  which  tradition  says  was 
built  by  the  Romans  during  the  siege  of  Veii  in  397 
B.  C.  Such  early  (or  earlier)  engineering  work  was 
interesting  to  see  and  so  was  the  new  shore-view  of  the 
lake  glimmering  through  reeds  and  darkened  by  mauve 
and  magenta  shadows. 

By  the  time  we  had  climbed  back  to  Castel  Gandolfo 
we  were  ready  for  rest  and  tea  at  Marroni's  "Grot- 
tino"  and  under  his  trellised  grape-vines  we  enjoyed 
the  lake  and  read  the  Italian  poems  that  decorate  his 
walls. 

"Allora  se  capisce  quanto  vale 
quer  lago,  quer  silenzio  e  quella  scena 
che  in  tutto  er  monno  nun  ce  sta  1'  uguale." 

To  Frascati  and  Tusculum  it  is  only  an  hour  by  the 
train  from  the  Termini  and  in  a  day  good  walkers  can 
see  several  of  the  villas  and  climb  Tusculum,  but  there 
are  carriages  in  plenty  and  the  drive  also  is  delightful. 
First  of  all  go  into  the  Cathedral  and  read  the  tablet 
to  Charles  Edward,  the  Young  Pretender,  who  was 
buried  at  Frascati  before  his  body  was  taken  to  St. 
Peter's.  Then  go  to  the  Villa  Aldobrandini,  get  the 
aged  custode  to  show  you  the  frescoes,  the  treasures  of 
the  library  and  afterwards  the  ornate  fountain  where 
Pan  plays  his  pipes  to  a  semi-circle  of  gods  and  finally 
wander  out  through  the  superb  ilexes  and  sycamores  to 
the  most  marvellous  of  Campagna  views. 

From  the  Villa  Aldobrandini  the  road  leads  up  to 
Tusculum  and  presently  you  can  find  the  overgrown 


22  Italy  Old  and  New 

hollow  of  the  amphitheater,  and  walk  up  the  paved  way 
to  that  exquisite  tree-arched  dingle  which  was  once  the 
Forum  and  which  still  leads  to  the  beautiful  Roman 
theater  on  the  deserted  hillside.  You  must  go  on  climb- 
ing above  the  theater  to  the  summit  of  the  Arx  for  the 
whole  circle  of  the  view  round  about  the  old  city 
founded  by  Circe's  son.  Afterwards,  map  in  hand,  you 
can  make  your  way  down  to  the  Villa  Mandragone  and 
the  Villa  Falconieri,  to  wander  through  their  magnifi- 
cent gardens. 

The  lover  of  hills  will  not  fail  to  climb  another 
mountain  north  of  Rome.  Day  after  day  in  your  wan- 
derings you  have  seen  rising  like  an  island  from  the 
undulating  sea  of  the  Campagna 

".  .  .  lone  Soracte's  height,  displayed 
Not  now  in  snow,  which  asks  the  lyric  Roman's  aid," 

and  for  the  sake  of  Horace  and  the  mountain's  own 
call,  you  start.  The  two  hours'  train  ride  from  the 
Piazza  Liberta  to  the  station  of  Sant'  Oreste  will  give 
you  new  views  of  the  Tiber  Valley.  From  the  station 
of  Sant'  Oreste  walk  up  the  open  road  towards  the  hill 
town,  but  turn  off  up  the  mountain-trail  to  the  left  just 
before  you  reach  the  city  itself.  Along  the  road  and 
through  the  olive-grove  we  had  views  of  the  mountain's 
long  crest,  rising  like  "a  wave  about  to  break."  The 
rocky  trail  up  was  so  gradual  that  we  could  talk  and 
enjoy  every  new  picture  from  the  sunlight  flickering 
across  the  path  through  the  olive  grove  on  the  lower 
slope  to  the  gray  monastery  of  San  Silvestro  which  rises 
out  of  the  rocks  at  the  summit.  The  bell  at  the  monas- 
tery door  will  summon  a  ragged,  hermit  monk  who  will 
point  out  every  mountain,  hamlet  and  lake  in  the  view, 


The  Joys  of  an  Orario  23 

and  will  unlock  to  your  delighted  eyes  the  fresco  treas- 
ures of  the  small  church.  We  enjoyed  his  entertaining 
loquacity  about  the  former  temple  of  Apollo  and  Perse- 
phone, San  Silvestro's  life  and  the  frescoes,  even 
though  we  were  starving  for  our  lunch.  Finally  left 
alone,  we  ate  in  the  blaze  of  Apollo's  golden  light  and 
for  joy  we  might  have  been  on  Mt.  Olympus  with  the 
gods.  Our  nectar  was  beauty:  a  circle  of  mountains 
around  us  except  to  the  south  where  the  line  of  the  sea 
shone;  to  the  left  on  the  horizon,  St.  Peter's  dome;  to 
the  right,  the  quiet  limpid  blue  of  Lago  di  Bracciano; 
and  behind  us,  winding  through  striated  meadows  all 
green  and  red,  the  silver  Tiber. 

I  never  can  tell  whether  I  love  more  the  mountains 
or  the  sea,  but  fortunately  one  does  not  have  to  choose 
even  at  Rome.  You  can  go  off  for  one  day  and  be  sail- 
ing on  the  bluest  of  deep  waters.  The  train  ride  to 
Anzio  takes  only  a  bit  over  an  hour,  so  by  nine-thirty 
you  can  be  walking  along  the  sandy  shore  north  to  the 
ruins  of  Nero's  great  villa  by  the  water.  Here  above 
on  the  cliffs  in  a  grassy  nook  we  ate  our  lunch,  then  back 
in  Anzio  we  secured  the  services  of  a  jolly  old  sailor 
named  Cristoforo  and  In  a  boat  with  a  golden  sail 
tipped  with  red,  we  sailed  for  five  hours  to  Astura  to 
see  the  remains  of  Cicero's  villa,  half  under  the  water 
and  to  Nettuno  where  we  landed  just  as  an  orange  sun- 
set was  lighting  the  Tyrrhenian  sea  and  a  long  line  of 
fishing-boats  came  in  homing  like  gulls  with  sails 
spread. 

Another  trip  that  may  end  with  a  dip  in  the  surf  is  a 
day  at  Ostia.  An  auto-bus  starts  every  morning  from 
the  Via  delle  Vite  arriving  at  Ostia  Paese  at  8:25  and 
as  the  return  trip  is  not  until  evening,  you  have  time 
to  wander  all  over  the  excavations,  to  see  the  finds  in 


24  Italy  Old  and  New 

the  Museum  of  the  old  Castello,  and  afterwards  walk 
three  miles  to  the  coast,  have  a  plunge  and  take  the 
bus  back  from  Ostia  Mare.  Ostia  is  as  fascinating  as 
Pompeii  though  its  life  was  more  commercial,  and  there 
is  much  to  see:  the  colossal  and  beautiful  statue  of 
Minerva-Victoria,  the  street  of  tombs,  houses,  baths, 
theater,  barracks,  office  building,  temples,  mithreum, 
then  all  the  delightful  decoration  of  bright  frescoes  on 
walls  and  magnificent  mosaics  on  floors,  also  the  sculp- 
ture in  the  Museum  where  a  certain  round  marble 
plaque  with  a  dancing  Bacchante  alone  would  reward  a 
whole  day's  journey. 

I  have  not  mentioned  the  Etruscan  sites  because 
there  is  so  much  to  say  about  them  that  I  despair.  Yet 
nothing  is  more  fascinating  than  to  go  with  Dennis's 
"Cities  and  Cemeteries  of  Etruria"  in  hand  (out  of 
date,  but  still  the  best  interpreter)  and  visit  Veii, 
Faleri,  Corneto,  Cerveteri,  Orvieto,  each  possible  in  a 
day.  If  in  limited  time  you  have  to  choose  among 
these  for  acquaintance  with  the  Etruscans,  select  Veii, 
Corneto  and  Cerveteri.  Veii  (best  reached  by  automo- 
bile) will  give  you  an  idea  of  a  typical  Etruscan  site  of 
high  ridge  protected  by  two  rivers,  a  remarkable  ex- 
ample of  prehistoric  engineering  in  the  tunnel  cut 
through  the  rock,  one  of  the  most  ancient  Etruscan 
tombs  that  has  been  found  with  beautiful  frescoes  of 
horse,  rider  and  dog,  then  the  later  Roman  city  with 
ruins  of  road,  water  channel  for  sacred  spring,  and  the 
temple  where  was  found  the  remarkable  archaic  statue 
of  Apollo,  now  in  the  Villa  Papa  Giulia,  a  life-sized 
painted  terra-cotta  representing  the  god  running. 

At  Corneto  (reached  by  train)  you  must  find  the 
custode  of  the  Etruscan  tombs,  then  visit  as  many  of 
those  underground  sepulchres   as  time   and  strength 


The  Joys  of  an  Orario  25 

allow.  Sixteen  we  entered  and  in  them  for  the  first  time 
I  felt  the  Etruscans  as  living  people,  for  in  those 
painted  chambers  which  copy  the  architecture  of  their 
houses  are  no  gloomy  death-scenes,  but  a  most  gallant 
picturing  of  every-day  life:  mounted  horsemen,  chari- 
ots with  their  drivers,  athletes  wrestling,  musicians 
playing  pipes  and  lyres,  men  and  women  dancing  to 
music  or  banqueting.  The  brightness  of  the  robes,  the 
vivacity  of  their  movements,  the  joy  of  life  that  those 
frescoes  preserve ! 

Cerveteri  was  to  me  even  more  interesting,  but  per- 
haps that  was  because  the  distinguished  excavator,  Inge- 
gnere  Rainero  Mengarelli  himself,  spent  a  day  showing 
me  all  his  work  on  the  Etruscan  necropolis :  the  street 
of  tombs  of  the  period  after  the  fifth  century,  the  dif- 
ferent types  of  tombs  found,  the  trench  tombs,  the 
tombs  above  ground,  the  earlier  chamber  tombs.  The 
chamber  tombs  are  startlingly  picturesque  both  because 
the  great  earth-mounds  which  originally  covered  them 
have  been  restored  and  because  the  chambers  them- 
selves display  such  variety  of  grouping  and  decoration 
from  a  bedroom  with  a  simple  fresco  of  lions  in  red 
and  white  to  a  great  hall  with  places  for  forty-eight 
persons  and  walls  covered  with  reliefs  of  weapons  and 
animals  and  cooking  utensils,  a  veritable  museum  of 
Etruscan  every-day  life.  Signor  Mengarelli  gave  me 
the  thrill  of  excavation,  for  he  had  saved  a  recently  dis- 
covered baby's  tomb  to  open  while  I  was  there,  hoping 
for  a  rich  harvest  of  toys  and  amulets  such  as  he  had 
found  in  another  child's  tomb  a  few  days  before.  I 
held  my  breath  as  the  workman  lifted  off  the  tufa 
blocks  which  covered  the  tiny  oblong  box  of  stone,  and 
carefully  removed  the  accumulated  earth  with  trowel 
and  knife.     Signor  Mengarelli  was  most  apologetic 


26  Italy  Old  and  New 

when  only  one  small  bronze  fibula  or  safety-pin  came  to 
light,  but  I  was  thinking  of  the  baby's  mother  who  had 
buried  that  one  little  object,  and  the  workman's  softly 
murmured  comment  chimed  in  with  my  mood:  "Era 
povero  lui !  Una  piccola  cosa  !  Cos!  Nostro  Signore 
era  un  bimbo  in  una  culla,  ma  egli  risucito!"  "He  was 
poor,  had  only  one  little  thing  1  So  our  Lord  was  a 
baby  and  lay  in  a  cradle,  but  He  arose." 

Neither  the  pathos  nor  the  gloom  of  the  Etruscan 
dead  had  much  hold  upon  us  in  Signor  Mengarelli's 
cheerful  presence  and  I  shall  never  forget  him  or  his 
black  horse,  called  Bucchero  after  the  black  Etrus- 
can pottery,  a  free  horse  who  has  never  been  in  a 
stall,  who  feeds  himself  when  he  is  not  working  for  the 
excavations  and  who  all  that  day  posed  proudly  on  top 
of  one  of  the  highest  tumuli  as  though  he  were  the  spirit 
of  one  of  the  painted  Etruscan  horses  escaped  from  the 
tomb  below. 

Orvieto  (three  hours  by  train)  has  so  much  more 
than  the  Etruscan  to  offer  that  a  stay  of  two  or  three 
days  would  be  far  more  valuable  than  one.  The  town 
itself  is  so  picturesquely  mediaeval,  the  Cathedral  with 
facade  and  frescoes  of  Fra  Angelico  and  Signorelli  so 
rich  in  interest.  There  are  other  towns  to  the  south  of 
Rome  which  can  be  seen  easily  in  a  day,  Palestrina, 
Cori,  Anagni,  Ninfa-Norma-Norba,  Velletri,  even  Ter- 
racina  if  time  is  limited.  For  Palestrina,  the  Rome- 
Fiuggi-Frosinone  line  arrives  in  about  an  hour  and  a 
half.  One  must  be  an  energetic  walker  to  cover  the 
small  town  from  low  station  to  high  citadel,  for  it  lies 
on  the  hillside  so  that  all  the  streets  are  stairs  where 
no  automobiles  or  carriages  can  ascend,  only  donkeys 
and  bipeds.  Sun-burned,  strong-backed  women  carry 
up  copper  water-jars  on  their  heads.    Old  crones  stand 


THE  THEATER  AT  TUSCULUM 


OPENING   THE   CHILD'S    GRAVE    AT    CERVETER] 


The  Joys  of  an  Orario  27 

twirling  distaffs  in  doorways.  Small  donkeys  encoun* 
ter  you  suddenly  around  corners.  All  this  picturesque- 
ness  we  enjoyed  as  we  hunted  for  ancient  Praeneste  in 
the  modern  town.  There  was  much  to  find :  the  city- 
walls  (the  great  prehistoric  one  down  the  hill,  a  sector 
of  Sulla's  time  over  a  carpenter's  shop  outside  the 
town),  the  enormous  cement-lined,  rain-water  cisterns 
of  the  empire,  the  old  forum  and  the  various  visible 
remains  of  the  Temple  of  Fortune  into  which  both  the 
Barberini  palace  and  much  of  the  modern  town  are 
built,  most  interesting  the  room  where  the  oracles  were 
cast  and  the  grotto  where  they  were  mysteriously  an- 
nounced through  high  hole  in  wall.  A  little  Museum 
houses  sculpture,  vases,  and  even  dice  from  this  past 
splendor.  The  glory  of  Palestrina  now  is  the  view 
from  the  Castel  San  Pietro,  the  summit  of  the  Acrop- 
olis, and  that  height  explains  the  city's  ancient  power, 
for  Praeneste  was  not  the  typical  Etruscan  plateau  site 
protected  by  gorges,  but  stood  on  a  high  limestone 
ridge  commanding  the  pass  to  the  sea  between  the  Al- 
ban  and  Volscian  mountains.  From  the  site  of  the  Arx 
opens  one  of  the  most  magnificent  views  I  have  had  in 
Italy.  Back  of  us  were  gray  limestone  ridges  of  which 
Praeneste's  citadel  seemed  a  part.  To  the  west,  be- 
tween the  hills  stretched  meadows  of  emerald  grain, 
woods  turning  autumn  russet  and  rose,  two  long  white 
roads  (the  Praenestina  and  the  Labicana)  winding  to 
Rome ;  farther  north,  an  island  in  the  misty  blue  rose 
majestic  Soracte;  and  to  the  south  between  Alban  and 
Volscian  mountains  we  looked  straight  to  the  golden 
sunlight  on  the  sea. 

Anagni  in  the  Hernican  mountains  has  less  varied 
reward  for  a  train  ride  of  an  hour  and  fifteen  minutes, 
but  it  is  worth  while  to  have  a  glimpse  of  the  Herni- 


28  Italy  Old  and  New 

cans  and  the  valley  of  the  Sacco,  and  when  you  reach 
the  high  little  town  (a  stupid,  dusty  walk  from  the 
station;  better  drive  up)  you  can  lunch  at  the  "Gallo" 
facing  the  mountain  heights  and  the  swirling  clouds. 
The  town's  treasure  is  not  the  piece  of  ancient  wall,  but 
the  eleventh  century  Cathedral  with  its  beautiful  Cos- 
mas  pavements,  its  elegant  bishop's  throne  and,  above 
all,  the  simple,  unspoiled  eleventh  century  crypt  with  the 
primitive  frescoes  of  naive  feeling  and  exquisite  colors. 
(Munoz  thinks  them  the  work  of  the  unknown  artist 
who  painted  the  scenes  from  the  life  of  Constantine 
in  Quattro  Coronati  in  Rome.)  Madonna  and  child 
are  there,  the  four  and  twenty  elders  adoring  the  lamb, 
beautiful  saints,  strange  seraphim.  The  one  that 
pleased  me  most  was  a  figure  of  John  the  Baptist  carry- 
ing a  scroll  in  his  hand,  with  this  Latin  below: 

"Verbo  petit  astra  Johannes  St.," 

"By  word  St.  John  sought  the  stars," 

a  motto  for  all  aspiring  writers  to  take  to  heart.  If 
you  wish  to  vary  your  trip  back  to  Rome,  drive  across 
country  to  the  Fiuggi  station  on  the  Rome-Frosinone 
line  and  enjoy  from  the  steam-tram  four  hours  of 
mountain  views  in  the  Volscian,  Hernican,  Alban  and 
Sabine  ranges. 

Three  towns  together  you  can  see  by  taking  an  hour 
and  a  half  train  ride  to  Ninfa-Norma  and  each  one  will 
give  you  something  different.  First  of  all,  take  bus  or 
carriage  up  to  Norma  and  walk  over  to  Norba.  Superb 
on  the  ridge's  summit,  it  has  preserved  prehistoric  walls 
and  gate  rivalled  only  by  Mycenae  and  the  ruins  stand 
in  all  their  early  glory  and  isolation,  for  the  later  city, 
never  rebuilt  after  Sulla's  destruction,  lies  low  in  grass- 
grown  temple  foundations  and  scattered  pieces  of  mar- 


The  Joys  of  an  Orario  29 

ble.  The  walk  to  Norba  will  give  you  appetite  for  the 
gift  which  unprepossessing  Norma  can  bestow,  a  beef- 
steak, tender  and  juicy,  in  the  little  upstairs  "Locanda 
della  Fortuna"  of  Raffaele  Tomassini,  a  genial  host. 
From  the  heights  of  the  ridge,  you  will  have  had  the 
fairest  view  of  Ninfa,  the  deserted  mediaeval  village 
by  the  railroad,  for  from  Norba  you  can  see  all  the 
gray,  story-book  ruin :  the  circular  town-wall,  the  moat, 
the  bridge,  the  castle  tower,  the  church,  the  houses,  but 
when  you  descend  from  Norma  in  an  hour  by  the  don- 
key-path through  the  olive-groves,  you  will  wish  to  walk 
through  the  melancholy  ivy-draped  hamlet  and  pick  as 
a  ricordo  an  ivy  leaf,  a  rosebud  and  a  violet  as  you  lis- 
ten to  the  fountain  and  the  birds.  Mediaeval  Ninfa 
was  more  dead  to  me  than  prehistoric  Norba.  I  know 
not  why,  unless  its  flatness  on  the  plain  which  cuts  off 
all  views  isolates  it  more  from  all  beauty  but  its  own, 
and  the  charm  of  its  gray  ivy-draped  walls  is  so  com- 
pletely of  the  past. 

Still  I  turn  the  pages  of  my  Orario  and  think  of  many 
other  day  trips  I  have  taken  from  Rome ;  for  example, 
Terracina's  fascinating  combination  of  surf  and  moun- 
tain, with  Horace's  old  Appian  Way  over  the  ridge  and 
Trajan's  new  cut  through  the  rocks  by  the  sea,  her 
cathedral  in  Roman  forum,  and  on  the  height  above  the 
town  the  great  ruins  of  the  temple  of  Jupiter  Anxur 
through  whose  arches  a  small  shepherd  boy  fled  shyly 
from  us,  piping  as  he  went.  But  part  of  the  enchant- 
ment of  the  Railroad  Guide  is  the  chance  to  make  dis- 
coveries and  if  I  have  but  started  you  on  the  quest  for 
walking  trips  near  Rome,  I  will  resign  to  you  my 
Orario;  and  afoot  and  light-hearted  once  more  I  will 
take  to  the  Open  Road,  confident  that  it  will  lead  me 
back  to  Rome. 


IV 

THE   MADONNA   OF    POMPEII 

(A  Fantasy) 

THE  shade  of  the  long  green  arbor  of  the  Al- 
bergo  del  Sole  invited  me  as  I  came  out  on  the 
hot  dusty  road  after  my  visit  to  the  amphithea- 
ter of  Pompeii.  It  was  five  in  the  afternoon  and  I  had 
spent  all  day  seeing  the  marvellous  new  part  of  old 
Pompeii,  the  street  where  walls  are  bright  with  signs 
and  election  notices,  wine-shops  display  their  amphorae, 
bronze  pitchers  and  drinking-bowls,  huge  doors  studded 
with  great  bronze  nails  swing  on  old  hinges,  rooms  be- 
hind them  open  vistas  of  color  on  mosaic  floor  and  fres- 
coed wall,  and  dominating  the  street  by  her  magnifi- 
cence the  Venus  of  Pompeii,  come  to  life  again  in  this 
uncovered  painting,  attended  by  her  divine  son,  tri- 
umphantly drives  four  elephants  before  her  chariot. 
The  goddess  had  held  my  fancy  while  I  walked  over  the 
amphitheater  for  last  views  of  the  great  gray  bowl  sunk 
in  the  green  hollow  presided  over  by  distant  blue  Vesu- 
vius. Strange  contrasts  were  in  my  mind,  for  I  had  just 
seen  the  last  discovery  in  the  Street  of  Abundance,  five 
skeletons  found  under  the  roof  of  a  house,  persons 
evidently  overcome  while  trying  to  escape  there,  each 
with  a  little  money-bag  of  copper  coins  in  his  hand. 
There  they  lay  in  their  pitiful  ruin  and  on  the  wall  down 
the  street  the  Venus  Pompeiana  still  rode  in  all  her 
bright  power.  The  triumph  of  art!  Or  is  it  that  the 
gods  alone  are  deathless? 

30 


The  Madonna  of  Pompeii         31 

So  I  had  meditated,  walking  through  the  amphithe- 
ater, and  now  I  was  ready  for  my  tea  as  I  sat  down  at 
one  of  the  little  white  tables  in  the  vine-trellised  arbor 
of  the  Albergo  del  Sole.  A  genial  white-haired  old 
man,  whom  I  judged  to  be  the  host  of  the  Inn,  left  his 
work  among  the  flowers,  received  and  delivered  my 
order,  then  returned  to  training  jasmine  and  roses  over 
the  Inn  wall.  Presently  a  sun-burned,  large-eyed  young 
woman  brought  my  tray  and  was  turning  to  leave 
quietly  when  my  eyes  fell  upon  an  unusual  amulet  which 
she  wore.  Its  large  oval  pictured  in  bright  colors  a 
Madonna  and  child,  their  heads  crowned  and  surround- 
ed with  a  circlet  of  stars  and  before  them  San  Domenico 
and  Santa  Catarina,  kneeling  in  astonished  rapture. 
The  Madonna  wore  a  golden  rosary. 

"Stay  a  minute  with  me,  please,"  I  said.  "What  is 
your  name?  Carmelita?  Tell  me  about  this  picture 
that  you  wear.    What  Madonna  is  it?" 

Her  placid  face  instantly  flashed  a  happy  response 
and  as  she  pressed  the  amulet  to  her  lips,  she  answered: 
"Signorina,  do  you  not  know  the  Madonna  of  Pom- 
peii, the  Madonna  of  the  Rosary?  Have  you  not  been 
to  her  shrine?" 

At  her  amazement  over  my  "No,"  I  begged  her,  if 
she  had  time,  to  enlighten  me  while  I  drank  my  tea.  So, 
standing  where  the  sunlight  flickered  down  through  the 
grape-vine  on  her  earnest  and  devout  face,  Carmelita 
told  me  her  story. 

"Years  ago,  Signorina,  Valle  di  Pompeii  was  not  a 
large  town  as  you  see  it  today,  but  just  a  little  hamlet 
on  the  edge  of  the  great  estate  of  the  young  Count,  and 
the  Count's  chapel  was  very,  very  small,  just  large 
enough  for  the  few  families  in  the  village  to  have  their 
little  service  in,  each  Sunday.     The  Count  then  was 


32  Italy  Old  and  New, 

always  in  Naples,  for  he  is  a  very  great  Avvocato,  Sig- 
norina,  and  the  Countess  is  a  noble  lady  whose  family 
has  lived  in  Naples  for  hundreds  or  years.  One  year 
not  long  ago,  the  Count  was  not  well  and  he  stayed  all 
winter  out  on  his  estate  at  Valle  di  Pompeii,  and  my 
father  says  he  remembers  when  it  was,  for  that  was  the 
year  when  they  found  the  picture  of  the  goddess  with 
the  elephants  in  the  scavi  at  old  Pompeii  (my  father 
was  one  of  the  workmen  digging  there)  and  the  year 
when  the  new  Madonna  came  to  the  little  chapel.  Did 
you  see  the  picture  of  the  Venus  with  the  elephants? 
The  new  scavi  are  not  open  to  the  public  yet  so  I  have 
never  seen  her.  But  the  Madonna !  One  morning 
when  my  father  went  in  to  say  his  prayers,  there  over 
the  altar  was  this  Madonna  with  the  gold  rosary  and 
the  stars,  and  the  prayers  that  he  made  to  her  that  day 
were  all  answered  by  nightfall,  for  Giuseppe  paid  him 
twenty  lire  he  owed  him  and  my  headache  stopped  for 
the  whole  afternoon.  I  was  just  a  little  girl  then  and 
always  sick,  Signorina. 

"My  father  told  Giuseppe  that  his  prayer  was  an- 
swered and  Giuseppe  laughed  and  laughed.  He  is  a 
very  wicked  man  and  never  goes  to  church,  so  it  is  no 
wonder  that  he  is  poor.  He  told  my  father  terrible 
lies,  making  him  promise  not  to  repeat  them,  and  I 
heard,  for  I  was  just  inside  the  door,  and  could  not  help 
hearing.  He  said  that  this  new  picture  of  the  Madonna 
had  been  for  days  in  the  window  of  an  old  Antiqua- 
rian's shop  in  Naples  which  he  passed  every  time  he 
drove  the  mules  in,  and  then  it  disappeared  from  the 
window,  and  one  day  the  Count  had  told  him  when  he 
brought  out  the  next  load  of  fertilizer  to  the  estate,  to 
stop  at  the  Antiquarian's  shop  for  a  package  and  bring 
it  on  top  of  the  load.    It  was  a  very,  very  heavy  pack- 


The  Madonna  of  Pompeii         33 

age.  He  took  it  to  the  Count's  villa  and  in  a  few  days, 
there  was  the  Madonna  of  the  Antiquarian's  window  in 
Naples  in  the  Count's  chapel  at  Valle  di  Pompeii.  My 
father  told  him  he  was  a  wicked  liar,  but  Giuseppe  just 
went  off  laughing. 

"Other  people  besides  my  father  had  their  prayers  to 
the  Madonna  answered,  and  then  about  a  month  later, 
a  wonderful  thing  happened.  A  friend  of  the  Coun- 
tess, another  great  lady  in  Naples,  was  very,  very  ill. 
She  had  been  thrown  out  of  a  carriage  in  an  accident 
and  no  one  could  see  where  she  was  hurt,  but  all  the 
time  she  cried  and  cried,  and  at  night  she  did  not  sleep, 
and  she  had  grown  so  thin  that  you  could  see  through 
her  hands.  The  Countess  begged  her  to  come  out  and 
try  praying  to  the  Madonna  of  the  Rosary,  so  the  beau- 
tiful, pale  young  lady  came,  and  she  knelt  in  the  little 
old  chapel  (I  saw  her)  and  promised  the  Madonna 
that  she  would  give  her  a  golden  crown  if  she  would 
only  make  her  well.  The  Madonna  heard  her  prayer 
and  from  that  moment,  Signorina,  the  queer  pains  left 
her,  she  could  sleep,  and  she  did  not  cry  at  all.  Every- 
one knew  about  the  miracle  because  the  golden  crowns 
came,  two,  one  for  the  Madonna  and  one  for  the  Bam- 
bino. All  the  papers  wrote  about  the  cure  and  the 
splendid  gifts.  Then  every  Sunday  people  began  to 
come  out  from  Naples  to  the  shrine,  especially  the  sick 
people  and  every  week  someone  was  healed.  After- 
wards everyone  who  was  cured  was  so  happy  that  he 
sent  back  or  brought  back  some  present  to  our  Lady, 
and  some  very  rich  people  who  saw  that  the  little  chapel 
had  no  room  for  all  who  came  gave  money  to  build  the 
great  new  church  where  I  was  cured. 

"You  must  go  and  see  it  tomorrow,  Signorina.  Do 
you  wish  to  hear  what  the  Madonna  did  for  me  ?  When 


34  Italy  Old  and  New 

I  was  fourteen,  my  father  died  and  I  was  alone,  for 
my  mother  had  gone  long  before,  and  I  did  not  know 
what  I  would  do.  I  had  no  money  and  no  relatives, 
and  I  was  very  sick.  I  had  worked  hard  to  get  my 
father's  meals  and  to  help  him  sometimes  in  his  work 
for  the  Padrone  in  the  field.  I  worked  even  when  my 
head  ached  and  now  it  always  ached  and  I  was  always 
coughing  and  very  cold.  I  was  in  despair  when  my 
father  died. 

"The  priest  who  came  to  see  him  before  he  died  said 
he  would  get  me  a  place  in  the  Orfanotrofio  of  the  Ma- 
donna's sanctuary.  The  church  was  so  rich  now  that 
the  Count  had  built  this  home  for  orphan  girls  out  of 
the  gifts  to  our  Lady.  I  was  very  unhappy  and  did  not 
wish  to  leave  our  two  little  rooms  where  we  lived  and 
I  lay  on  the  bed  very  sick,  crying,  the  day  when  my 
father  had  been  buried,  waiting  for  the  Sister  to  come 
and  get  me.  The  Sisters  are  very  kind  to  the  girls  at 
the  Orphanage,  but  I  could  not  take  an  interest  in  any- 
thing and  I  kept  feeling  more  and  more  ill.  I  went  to 
the  church  every  day  and  said  the  prayers,  but  I  said 
them  only  with  my  lips  and  they  left  me  cold. 

"One  day  all  was  different,  Signorina.  The  Cardinal 
came  out  from  Naples  to  the  festa  and  all  the  girls 
from  the  Orphanage  marched  in  the  great  procession 
through  the  town  behind  the  cross  and  him.  He  blessed 
us  all  and  in  the  church  afterwards  he  preached  a  little 
sermon  and  told  us  that  our  god  was  a  god  of  love,  that 
the  Blessed  Virgin  understood  all  women,  that  faith 
could  remove  mountains  and  the  Madonna  of  the  Ro- 
sary would  answer  our  prayers.  He  pointed  to  the 
thousands  of  silver  offerings  on  the  panels  of  the 
church  (you  can  see  them  there,  Signorina),  and  said 
they  were  a  cloud  of  witnesses  to  the  power  of  the  Ma- 


The  Madonna  of  Pompeii         35 

donna  of  the  Rosary  and  as  our  faith  so  would  be  our 
strength;  we  had  only  to  believe  and  ask  what  we 
needed  most  and  our  prayers  would  be  answered. 

"Signorina,  the  Cardinal  was  so  big  and  wonderful 
in  his  red  robe  that  I  believed  at  last  and  I  dropped  on 
my  knees,  looking  up  to  the  Madonna's  picture  and  I 
prayed  with  all  my  heart  to  be  cured  and  to  have  a  lit- 
tle home  of  my  own.  It  was  very  ungrateful  of  me, 
for  the  Sisters  in  the  Orphanage  were  most  kind,  but 
the  Blessed  Madonna  understood,  and,  Signorina,  as  I 
prayed  and  watched  her,  I  saw,  I  really  saw  her  face 
turn  a  little  towards  me,  and  she  smiled,  she  smiled  at 
me !  I  knew  then  that  my  prayers  were  answered  and 
I  went  out  very  happy.  That  night  Giovanni  who  is 
the  cameriere  here  at  the  Albergo  asked  me  to  marry 
him  and  I  told  him  I  would.  I  have  never  been  sick 
since  that  moment  of  my  prayer,  Signorina.  Do  I  not 
look  well?  Giovanni  and  I  have  given  a  silver  heart  to 
the  Madonna  and  every  day  I  look  at  it  when  I  go  to 
say  my  prayers  and  thank  her  again.  You  can  see  it, 
for  it  is  the  fourth  heart  in  the  top  row  of  the  third 
panel  from  the  front  on  the  right  of  the  altar. 

"If  you  are  ever  ill,  Signorina,  you  have  only  to  go 
and  pray  at  our  Shrine.  You  should  go  and  buy  an 
amulet  now  and  the  little  book  of  prayers  that  the 
Count  has  written  for  us.  He  is  always  working  for 
the  church  and  never  goes  in  to  his  office  in  Naples 
now.  He  has  built  little  houses  on  his  estate  for  the 
priests  and  for  the  people  who  work  at  the  shrine  and 
a  little  inn  for  the  sick  people  who  come,  and  he  writes 
a  great  deal  about  the  shrine  and  all  the  blessed  work 
of  our  Lady.  People  from  all  over  Italy  come  to  the 
shrine,  just  as  they  go  to  Santa  Rosalia's  on  Monte 
Pellegrino  in  Palermo  and  to  Lourdes  in  France.    No 


36  Italy  Old  and  New 

one  comes  to  see  old  Pompeii  now  without  coming  to 
see  the  wonder-working  Madonna  of  Valle  di  Pompeii. 

''Strange  people  come  sometimes,  Signorina.  There 
was  an  English  artist  who  stayed  here  at  the  Inn  several 
days  to  paint  and  he  wished  to  paint  a  picture  of  me. 
He  said  I  must  talk  to  him  while  he  painted  so  I  would 
look  natural.  I  told  him  my  story  as  I  have  you,  and 
he  became  very  much  excited  on  hearing  that  the  Ma- 
donna appeared  and  began  her  miracles  the  same  day 
the  fresco  of  the  goddess  with  the  elephants  was  discov- 
ered in  old  Pompeii.  He  told  me  such  strange  things, 
— that  the  goddess  of  the  elephants  was  a  goddess  of 
love  with  a  little  winged  son,  and  she  could  make  people 
do  what  she  wished;  that  she  loved  flowers  just  as  our 
Blessed  Virgin  does.  You  will  see  her  painted  among 
lilies  and  roses  on  the  walls  of  the  church.  He  said  she 
was  always  the  goddess  of  Pompeii  and  that  he  is  sure 
when  she  was  re-discovered  in  the  Strada  dell'  Abbon- 
danza,  as  her  picture  came  to  light,  her  power  was 
freed,  and  she  appeared  in  just  another  form  in  our 
little  chapel  to  be  the  goddess  of  Pompeii  again,  to 
work  for  the  people,  and  to  make  the  new  city  famous, 
and  because  she  always  was  the  goddess  of  love,  she 
cured  me  by  making  me  marry  Giovanni. 

"I  did  not  know  what  to  make  of  the  story,  so  1  told 
Giovanni  about  it  and  he  said  the  Englishman  was  un- 
doubtedly crazy,  and  we  would  both  go  that  very  night 
and  pray  together  to  the  Madonna  of  the  Rosary,  and 
I  was  never  again  to  think  of  the  English  artist  or  such 
nonsense.  So  we  went  and  prayed  together  for  a  child, 
Signorina,  and  now  we  have  a  beautiful  baby  girl, 
named  Maria  for  the  Blessed  Virgin  who  cured  me  and 
gave  me  Giovanni  and  my  home." 

It  was  time  for  me  to  start  for  the  train  to  Naples, 


The  Madonna  of  Pompeii         37 

but  as  I  promised  Carmelita,  on  my  way  to  the  station 
I  stopped  at  the  Sanctuary  of  the  Madonna  of  the  Ro- 
sary and  as  I  knelt  there  for  a  moment  with  the  great 
throng  of  devout  worshippers  and  looked  up  at  the 
beautiful  queen  of  heaven,  adorned  with  jewels,  sur- 
rounded with  flowers,  I  felt  a  strange  sense  of  awe  at 
the  wonders  of  worship,  of  faith  and  of  healing,  and 
at  the  eternally  new-old  needs  of  the  human  soul  for 
its  god.  Venus  redivivaf  No  !  But  there  remaineth 
still  the  mystery  of  religion,  the  unexplainable  verity, 
the  perennial  belief  in  the  miraculous  powers  of  heaven, 
and  it  was  passing  strange  to  me  that  here  in  Pompeii 
where  the  Venus  Pompeiana  once  reigned,  I  was  now 
kneeling  in  the  great  church  of  the  wonder-working 
Madonna  of  the  Rosary. 


V; 

A    VISIT   TO   ANCIENT   OSTIA 

FOR  one  who  takes  delight  in  harbors,  shipping, 
cargoes,  docks,  sailors,  seafaring  and  Joseph 
Conrad's  stories,  the  ruins  of  Ostia,  the  old  port 
of  Rome,  compose  a  fascinating  chapter  in  the  ancient 
life  of  Italy.  Yet  their  significance  is  so  little  known 
that,  I  suppose,  for  every  fifty  travellers  who  go  out 
from  Naples  to  Pompeii,  one  goes  from  Rome  to  Ostia. 
Now  the  reward  of  a  day's  trip  there,  easily  made  by 
motor-bus  or  automobile  is  a  glimpse  at  an  ancient  city 
which  was  very  different  in  character  from  Pompeii, 
commercial,  full  of  business  men  and  foreign-born  la- 
borers, closely  connected  with  Rome  but  more  depend- 
ent on  the  sea,  expressing  in  its  public  buildings  and 
private  houses,  even  ruined  as  they  are  today,  the  char- 
acter of  its  life  and  of  its  inhabitants.  Such  a  human 
document,  written  in  bricks,  stone,  marble,  stucco  and 
mosaic,  is  fascinating  reading  if  one  understands  the 
language  or  has,  as  it  were,  a  translation  of  its  un- 
known tongue,  or  a  key  for  its  great  historical  picture. 
One  difficulty  for  the  average  visitor  to  Ostia  is  that 
the  descriptions  of  recent  excavations  are  scattered 
through  the  Italian  publication,  the  Notizie  degli  scavi 
or  secluded  in  the  Literary  Supplement  of  the  London 
Times,  or  in  Thomas  Ashby's  articles  in  the  "Journal 
of  Roman  Studies,"  and  the  best  guide-book  is  still  the 
Italian  one  by  Dante  Vaglieri  published  as  long  ago  as 
1914.    There  is,  however,  a  small  guide  in  English  by 

38 


A  Visit  to  Ancient  Ostia  39 

Tani,  the  Guards  will  point  out  objects  of  interest,  and 
the  ruins  themselves  tell  much.  Perhaps  I  can  be  of 
help  by  jotting  down  notes  from  my  study  of  Ostia  and 
from  the  brilliant  interpretation  of  the  ruins  which  I 
heard  the  Director  of  the  Excavations,  Doctor  Guido 
Calza,  give. 

The  name  Ostia,  "mouth,"  is  the  keynote  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  ancient  town  which  was  the  harbor  of  Rome 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber,  fifteen  miles  from  the  city, 
but  today  because  of  the  deposits  brought  down  by  the 
river,  you  have  to  go  two  miles  beyond  the  excavations 
to  find  the  sea.  Much  story  and  history  are  associated 
with  this  little  town.  Tradition  says  it  was  founded  by 
an  early  King,  Ancus  Martius,  but  neither  excavations 
nor  records  bear  this  out.  There  are  no  remains  earlier 
than  the  third  century  before  Christ  and  the  first  men- 
tion of  Ostia  in  history  is  during  the  second  Punic  War. 
Perhaps  there  was  a  little  early  settlement  here  for  the 
sake  of  the  saltworks.  Ostia  was  always  a  colony  of 
Rome  and  was  essential  to  her  as  a  port  for  two  rea- 
sons, for  her  naval  supremacy  and  for  her  corn  supply. 
Perhaps  the  foundation  of  the  colony  is  to  be  connected 
with  the  appointment  of  the  four  quaestors  of  the  fleet 
in  267  B.C.,  and  the  assignment  of  one  of  them  to 
Ostia.  The  importance  to  Rome  of  the  little  colony  at 
the  mouth  of  the  river  was  so  great  that  as  early  as  207 
B.C.,  the  citizens  (along  with  those  of  Antium)  re- 
ceived exemption  from  military  service  on  condition 
that  they  be  present  constantly  as  a  garrison  on  their 
own  walls.  When,  however,  in  191  B.C.,  the  Ostians 
tried  to  secure  also  exemption  from  naval  service,  this 
was  refused. 

Of  the  many  picturesque  stories  connected  with 
Ostia,  the  most  dramatic  is  that  of  the  arrival  of  the 


40  Italy  Old  and  New 

Great  Mother.  When  during  the  second  Punic  War, 
Rome  was  suffering  terrible  reverses  at  the  hands  of 
I  [annibal,  the  Cumaean  Sibyl  and  Apollo  directed  that 
the  Magna  Mater  (a  Phrygian  goddess,  Rhea,  or 
Cybele)  should  be  brought  to  Rome.  When  the  sacred 
black  stone  symbolizing  the  Great  Mother  in  due  time 
arrived  from  Pessinus  in  Phrygia  and  a  great  delegation 
from  Rome,  led  by  her  noblest  citizen,  a  Scipio,  was 
waiting  on  the  shore  at  Ostia  to  receive  the  sacred  ob- 
ject and  carry  it  to  Rome,  the  boat  remained  fixed  on  a 
sandbar  and  could  not  be  moved  by  any  amount  of 
human  effort.  When  all  were  finally  in  despair  over 
the  dreadful  omen,  Claudia  Quinta,  a  noble  matron 
(some  say  a  Vestal  Virgin)  whose  fair  name  had  been 
slandered  by  the  gossip  of  the  day,  stood  forth  and 
prayed  to  the  Great  Mother  to  vindicate  her  honor  and 
if  her  life  had  been  pure  to  follow  her  to  Rome.  When 
Claudia  laid  her  hand  on  the  rope,  the  ship  followed 
her.  A  marble  altar  in  the  Capitoline  Museum  in 
Rome  is  carved  with  a  picture  of  this  story  and  to  make 
it  clearer,  the  Magna  Mater  is  represented  on  the  boat 
not  by  the  black  stone,  but  by  a  statue.  The  same  story 
is  used  by  D'Annunzio  in  one  of  his  most  beautiful 
poems,  "A  Roma"  a  deeply  serious  appeal  which  chal- 
lenges Rome,  the  eternal,  to  be  again  the  seat  of  the 
Great  Mother,  the  spiritual  salvation  of  the  world. 

Ostia  herself  knew  the  ravages  of  war,  for  she  was 
seized  by  Marius  and  given  over  to  plunder  by  his  sol- 
diers, and  in  67  B.C.  as  Cicero  tells  us,  in  his  speech  for 
the  Manilian  Law,  the  fleet  was  attacked  here  by  Cili- 
cian  pirates  and  the  ships  all  destroyed  or  captured. 
There  was  need  of  a  real  harbor  here  for  the  protection 
both  of  the  navy  and  of  commerce,  for  as  Strabo  says, 
"alluvial   deposits   continually   brought   down   by   the 


A  Visit  to  Ancient  Ostia  41 

Tiber  compelled  the  larger  class  of  vessels  to  ride  at 
anchor  in  the  open  roadstead  at  great  risk."  Julius 
Caesar  planned  to  make  an  artificial  port,  but  it  was 
Claudius  who  carried  out  his  design  and  made  a  harbor 
two  miles  north  of  Ostia,  communicating  with  the  river 
by  an  artificial  channel.  Here  large  boats  could  un- 
load into  smaller  craft  or  into  barges  which  conveyed 
their  cargo  to  storehouses.  Such  an  operation  is  repre- 
sented on  a  wall-painting  from  a  tomb  at  Ostia  now  in 
the  Vatican  library.  On  the  boat  which  is  named  the 
Isis  Geminiana  stand  the  pilot  with  an  oarlike  rudder 
and  the  owner  with  a  branch  perhaps  of  laurel.  Two 
porters  are  walking  up  a  plank  carrying  bags  probably 
of  grain,  a  third  is  emptying  his  bag  into  a  recipient 
which  another  man  holds,  and  a  fourth  sits  on  the  deck 
beside  his  bag,  which  is  labelled  happily  feci,  'I  have 
finished.'  The  picture  is  typical  of  the  life  of  Ostia  as 
the  great  commercial  port  of  Rome  after  Claudius' 
harbor  was  built.  Before  that  all  the  largest  vessels 
had  to  put  in  at  Puteoli,  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
from  Rome,  just  as  St.  Paul  did.  Nero  put  on  his  coins 
a  representation  of  the  harbor  and  would  have  it  called 
not  Portus  Claudii  but  Portus  Augusti,  so  that  he  might 
share  in  the  honor  of  the  work,  and  then  Trajan  en- 
larged Claudius'  harbor  by  adding  an  inner  hexagonal 
basin,  and  another  name,  Portus  Traiani,  and  now 
around  the  two  grew  up  a  new  town,  Portus  Ostiensis, 
which  increased  in  importance  especially  in  the  time  of 
Constantine  when  it  was  given  the  double  defence  of 
religion  by  being  made  an  Episcopal  see  and  of  fortifi- 
cations by  the  construction  of  strong  walls  and  towers. 
Ostia  itself,  however,  flourished  through  the  Empire 
under  Domitian,  Hadrian,  Severus,  and  Aurelian;  was 
indeed  largely  rebuilt  in  the  second  century  but  eventu- 


42  Italy  Old  and  New 

ally  Portus  Ostiensis  being  well  fortified  gained  the  ad- 
vantage over  Ostia  which  gradually  decayed.  Portus 
Ostiensis  too  suffered  the  vicissitudes  of  war,  was 
sacked  by  Alaric,  King  of  the  Goths  in  409  A.D.,  by 
Belisarius  in  537  and  by  the  Arabs  in  the  eighth  cen- 
tury. Little  by  little  as  the  life  of  Rome  dwindled  in 
importance,  the  business  of  Ostia  diminished  until 
finally  its  value  was  chiefly  as  a  quarry  for  rich  marbles 
from  the  ruins.  So  ancient  Ostia  in  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury gave  up  its  treasures  for  the  building  of  the  Cathe- 
dral of  Pisa  and  in  the  fourteenth  for  the  Cathedral  of 
Orvieto. 

Something  more  of  the  life  of  the  people  in  the  city 
is  learned  from  the  inscriptions  found  there.  Perhaps 
in  the  flourishing  period  of  the  second  and  third  cen- 
turies there  was  a  population  of  80,000  persons,  not 
counting  the  transient  guests  known  to  every  harbor, 
and  this  number  was  largely  composed  of  persons  in  the 
middle  and  lower  classes,  the  men  occupied  in  commerce 
and  industry,  and  the  slaves.  There  are  records  of 
many  guilds :  of  ship-builders  and  of  carpenters,  of  boat- 
men and  fishermen,  of  merchants  of  wine  and  oil  and 
grain.  There  must  have  been,  of  course,  many  inn- 
keepers and  tavern-keepers  to  accommodate  the  floating 
population.  The  city  had  the  usual  magistrates  of  col- 
onies, duumvirs,  quaestors,  aediles  and  a  council  of  de- 
curions,  and  besides  its  officials,  Ostia  like  all  small 
towns  had  its  great,  or  shall  we  say,  very  rich  men — 
Acilius  Glabrio  whose  name  is  still  cut  clear  in  marble 
block  dedicated  to  the  safety  of  some  Caesar,  perhaps 
Domitian,  and  the  two  Lucilii  Gamale,  whose  public 
benefactions  are  recorded  in  two  long  inscriptions. 
What  a  strangely  modern  sound  these  lists  of  public 
services  have !     Banquets  for  the  citizens  of  the  towns, 


A  Visit  to  Ancient  Ostia  43 

rebuilding  of  public  edifices  like  the  baths,  the  paving 
of  the  roads,  subscriptions  for  repairing  the  temples, 
generous  contributions  to  war  funds.  It  was  something 
to  be  a  Lucilius  Gamale  in  Ostia !  You  can  imagine  how 
important  such  a  man  was  on  the  occasions  when  dis- 
tinguished foreigners  landed  here  en  route  to  Rome,  or 
when  an  emperor  came  out  to  inspect  the  needs  of  the 
harbor,  or  when  the  city  was  visited  by  the  wealthy 
Romans  who  owned  villas  along  the  Via  Ostiense  or  the 
shore. 

Of  such  visits  we  have  the  most  human  and  delightful 
records.  About  200  A.  D.  a  Christian  lawyer  of  Rome, 
Minutius  Felix,  wrote  a  dialogue  called  the  "Octavius," 
the  scene  of  which  is  laid  here.  Minutius  himself  and 
his  friend  Octavius,  both  Christians,  and  Caecilius,  a 
pagan,  had  decided  on  a  delightful  autumn  day  to  go  to 
that  very  pleasant  city  Ostia  for  the  sea-bathing  and 
after  walking  on  the  sand  "at  the  very  threshold  of  the 
water"  and  watching  some  small  boys  skipping  shells 
on  the  waves,  they  sat  down  on  the  rocks,  to  rest  and 
to  argue.  And  there  was  much  to  talk  about,  for  as 
they  were  walking,  Caecilius  had  kissed  his  hand,  in 
reverence,  to  a  statue  of  the  Egyptian  god  Serapis,  and 
now  they  must  talk  over  the  worship  of  the  old  gods 
and  the  new  Christ,  the  temple  not  made  with  hands, 
the  hope  of  a  resurrection  of  the  body  and  all  "those 
things  which  it  is  easier  to  feel  than  to  say."  It  would 
be  worth  while  to  take  the  dialogue  "Octavius"  out  to 
Ostia  and  read  it  by  the  surf  where  the  three  friends 
talked  until  Caecilius  was  conquered  and  "saw  a  great 
light." 

Another  famous  religious  conversation  took  place  at 
Ostia  between  St.  Augustine  and  his  mother  Monica 
before  her  death  there.    It  is  written  in  the  "Confes- 


44  Italy  Old  and  New 

sions"  beginning  in  Book  IX  at  the  tenth  chapter.  (I 
use  William  Watts'  translation.) 

"The  day  now  approaching  that  she  was  to  depart 
this  life,  it  fell  out  .  .  .  that  she  and  I  should  stand 
alone  leaning  in  a  certain  window,  which  looked  into 
the  garden  within  the  house  where  we  now  lay,  at  Ostia 
by  Tiber;  where  being  sequestered  from  company  after 
the  wearisomeness  of  a  long  journey,  we  were  recruiting 
ourselves  for  a  sea  voyage.  There  conferred  we  hand 
to  hand  very  sweetly;  and  forgetting  those  things  which 
are  behind,  we  reached  forth  unto  those  things  which 
are  before:  we  did  betwixt  ourselves  seek  at  that  Pres- 
ent Truth  in  what  manner  the  eternal  life  of  the  saints 
was  to  be,  which  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor 
hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of  man.  But  yet  we 
panted  with  the  mouth  of  our  heart  after  those  upper 
streams  of  thy  fountain,  the  fountain  of  life;  that  being 
besprinkled  with  it  according  to  our  capacity,  we  might 
in  some  sort  meditate  upon  so  high  a  mystery." 

It  was  only  five  days  afterwards  that  Monica  fell 
into  a  fever  and  soon  realizing  that  her  end  was  near, 
bade  her  sons  bury  her  there,  and  when  they  in  their 
distress  longed  to  have  her  die  not  in  a  strange  place, 
but  in  her  own  country  that  there  she  might  be  buried, 
she  reassured  them  saying:  "Lay  this  body  anywhere, 
let  not  the  care  for  that  disquiet  you,"  just  as  to  cer- 
tain of  her  friends  she  had  also  given  words  of  com- 
fort, saying  "Nothing  is  far  from  God."  No  son 
could  write  about  his  mother  more  tenderly  than  does 
Saint  Augustine. 

The  picture  of  son  and  mother  standing  in  the  win- 
dow of  the  inn  "looking  into  the  garden  within  the 
house"  is  a  beautiful  introduction  to  a  study  of  the  style 
of  the  houses  in  Ostia.    They  are  very  different  from 


A  Visit  to  Ancient  Ostia  45 

the  houses  at  Pompeii  in  which  rooms  are  grouped  about 
a  large  central  hall,  the  atrium,  and  a  courtyard  sur- 
rounded by  columns,  the  peristyle ;  there  are  few  and 
very  small  windows;  and  there  is  no  complete  second 
story,  only  in  some  cases  groups  of  upper  rooms  with 
their  own  staircases.  Only  one  example  of  this  Pom- 
peian  type  of  house  has  been  found  at  Ostia.  Instead 
the  typical  house  is  a  large  apartment  house  of  several 
stories,  with  rooms  on  each  floor  around  a  central  court- 
yard without  a  colonnade  and  lighted  from  it  quite  as 
in  a  modern  apartment  house.  These  houses  have  many 
separate  staircases  for  the  different  apartments  and 
upper  balconies.  Ask  for  "the  house  of  Diana"  near 
the  Temple  of  Vulcan  and  see  its  amazing  character- 
istics: from  the  outside  the  shops  with  large  doors 
opening  on  the  street,  the  arched  supports  for  the  third- 
story  balconies,  and  the  second-story  windows,  then, 
inside,  the  central  courtyard  with  the  fountain  and  the 
little  shrine  to  Diana  on  the  wall,  the  staircases,  the 
upper  rooms  arranged  in  groups  for  separate  apart- 
ments. Then  after  you  have  seen  it,  look  up  in  "Art  and 
Archaeology"  for  November,  1921,  Doctor  Calza's 
article  on  "The  Aesthetics  of  the  Antique  City"  and 
see  the  pictures  of  reconstructions  of  houses  of  this  type. 
As  you  look  at  the  view  of  a  reconstructed  tenement 
house  with  its  courtyard,  you  will  surely  think  of  St. 
Augustine  and  his  mother  leaning  out  of  a  window  look- 
ing down  into  the  garden.  Doctor  Calza  says  that  one 
of  the  most  important  contributions  that  the  excava- 
tions at  Ostia  have  made  to  our  knowledge  of  ancient 
life  is  this  new  light  thrown  on  the  history  of  house 
architecture  during  the  Empire,  for  here  in  a  city  near 
Rome  and  undoubtedly  imaging  it,  we  have  a  style  of 
house  which  has  no  counterpart  in  Greece  and  the 


46  Italy  Old  and  New 

Orient,  utterly  different  from  the  Pompeian  type,  and 
clearly  the  precursor  of  the  modern  house. 

As  you  walk  about,  going  in  one  house  after  another, 
you  will  come  upon  all  sorts  of  fascinating  details :  little 
twin  shrines  on  cither  side  of  entrance  hall,  remarkable 
frescoes  in  one  large  ground-floor  room  of  two  orators 
facing  each  other  and  also  of  two  poets,  a  fresco  dec- 
oration in  a  room  of  another  house  architectural  in 
style  but  with  the  columns  converging  towards  the  bot- 
tom and  the  vrases  on  top  of  the  columns  not  exactly  in 
the  center  so  that  the  whole  effect  is  asymmetrical,  per- 
haps to  suggest  perspective. 

There  are  individual  touches  in  the  shops,  too,  es- 
pecially in  the  decorations.  In  front  of  one,  at  the 
barracks  of  the  fire  brigade,  in  mosaic  on  the  sidewalk 
is  a  two-handled  goblet  and  an  inscription  written  in 
both  Greek  and  Latin  saying  that  Proclus  made  it.  In 
another  tiny  shop,  the  floor  mosaic  shows  again  a  goblet 
and  around  it  an  inscription  with  the  advice  of  Fortu- 
natus  (perhaps  the  shop-keeper)  :  "As  long  as  ye  are 
thirsty,  drink  from  the  bowl."  Another  large  shop  is 
most  elaborately  adorned  in  marbles  of  every  color, 
has  a  marble  counter  on  the  street  with  three  shelves 
and  two  basins  for  washing  the  goblets,  against  the  wall 
a  sort  of  sideboard  effect  with  shelves  above,  cupboards 
below  and  paintings  of  food  on  the  wall  and  a  marble 
hat-rack  with  bronze  hooks  hanging  on  the  wall. 

We  can  see  also  some  of  the  public  buildings  of  the 
people  who  went  to  these  delicatessen  shops  and  lived 
in  these  houses  :  the  barracks  of  the  fire  companies,  their 
baths,  the  building  of  the  corporations  trading  with 
Ostia,  and  the  temples  of  the  gods.  Of  course  all  these 
ire  in  ruin,  but  the  remains  are  always  significant,  often 
beautiful.     The  barracks  of  the  fire  companies  show, 


A  Visit  to  Ancient  Ostia  47 

scratched  on  two  pilasters  by  the  entrance  door,  names 
of  firemen  and  an  entire  alphabet.  Inside  is  a  great 
courtyard  and  opposite  the  entrance  a  sort  of  alcove 
chapel  of  the  imperial  family,  marble  columns  across 
the  front,  a  mosaic  pavement  representing  a  sacrificial 
scene  with  altar,  musicians,  and  bulls,  then  at  the  rear, 
a  raised  platform  bearing  five  inscribed  altars.  The 
barracks  show  also  a  latrina  or  closet  with  elaborate 
hygienic  arrangements  and  on  the  wall  an  exquisite 
little  marble  shrine  to  revered  Fortune. 

The  street  in  front  of  these  barracks  is  a  curiosity, 
for  the  road  with  its  great  paving-stones  stands  above 
the  mosaic  floor  of  an  earlier  building,  probably  baths 
of  the  first  century  after  Christ,  so  that  you  look  down 
on  mosaics  symbolizing  the  provinces  of  Rome,  the 
triquetra  or  three  legs  for  Sicily,  a  head  with  a  wreath 
of  olive-leaves  for  Spain,  a  head  with  an  elephant  head- 
dress for  Africa  and  another  with  a  crocodile  for  Egypt, 
and  beside  the  provinces  are  heads  of  winds  and  groups 
of  weapons.  Very  strange  is  this  magnificent  floor 
decoration  of  a  room  submerged  beneath  a  roadway  of 
a  later  level  of  civilization.  So  Ostia  disappeared,  not 
by  one  stroke  of  fate  like  that  which  ended  Pompeii, 
but  by  the  gradual  ruin,  and  rebuilding,  and  desertion 
of  the  centuries. 

The  baths,  not  these  under  the  street,  but  those  of 
the  later  empire,  show  clearly  the  arrangement  of  rooms 
and  palestra,  the  marble  bath  tubs,  the  heating  arrange- 
ments, but  their  great  glory  consists  in  the  superb  mo- 
saics covering  the  floors :  in  one  room  Neptune  driving 
a  chariot  of  four  hippocamps,  in  another  Amphitrite 
riding  through  the  ocean  on  a  sea-horse  and  in  a  third 
old  Triton  blowing  his  sea-wreathed  horn. 

The  theater  is  disappointing  after  a  view  of  the  two 


48  Italy  Old  and  New 

at  Pompeii,  and  the  ones  in  Syracuse  and  Segesta,  for 
the  seats  are  nearly  all  destroyed  and  there  remains 
only  the  front  of  the  stage  with  some  of  the  sculptural 
decoration,  but  its  outline  is  clear  and  its  relation  to 
the  building  of  corporations  back  of  it.  This  to  me  is 
one  of  the  most  interesting  structures  in  Ostia.  Its 
great  open  square,  262  by  262  feet,  was  surrounded 
by  columns  and  this  colonnade  was  divided  into  small 
rooms  for  the  offices  of  the  corporations  which  had  com- 
mercial dealings  with  the  city.  Their  floor  mosaics  give 
their  history,  for  here  are  inscribed  the  names  of  the 
corporations,  accompanied  by  pictures  of  ships,  light- 
houses and  dolphins.  In  a  room  at  the  southeastern 
corner  of  this  building  was  found  the  altar,  now  in  the 
National  Museum  in  Rome,  with  a  relief  representing 
the  origins  of  Rome, — Romulus  and  Remus,  nursed  by 
the  wolf,  the  river-god  Tiber,  the  watching  shepherds. 
In  the  center  of  the  open  area  of  this  building,  on  a 
platform  seven  feet  high,  was  a  small  temple.  The 
superstructure  is  gone  now,  but  in  place  where  the  hall 
once  was  is  a  seated  statue  of  a  goddess,  headless,  with- 
out attributes,  called  Ceres  only  because  so  many  of  the 
corporations  connected  with  the  building  had  to  do  with 
the  grain  supply. 

In  the  grassy  courtyard  other  marble  statues  of 
toga-clad  men  stand  about  as  though  they  were  the 
shades  of  past  Ostians  and  their  presence,  the  vivid 
mosaics  of  seafaring,  and  the  murmur  of  the  stone- 
pines  overhead  emphasize  a  certain  mournful  quality  of 
disuse  which  Ostia  has  for  me  far  more  than  Pompeii. 
There  people  seemed  more  occupied  with  the  art  of  liv- 
ing than  with  the  business  of  existence,  and  many  of 
the  little  houses  are  so  full  of  color  on  wall,  floor  and 
column  and  so  adorned  with  flowers  that  it  seems  as 


AT   ARICCIA,    NEAR   LAKE   NEMI 


A    FLOOR    MOSAIC    IX    THE    BATHS    AT    OSTIA 


A  Visit  to  Ancient  Ostia  49 

though  the  owners  must  have  just  gone  out  for  a  few 
moments. 

To  study  the  temples  of  Ostia  is  to  study  the  develop- 
ment of  Roman  religion,  for  here  the  evidence  of  in- 
scriptions shows  that  there  were  dedications  to  the 
abstract  Roman  deities  of  early  times  like  Fortune  and 
Hope,  to  the  great  Greek  and  Roman  gods,  Jupiter, 
Venus,  Vulcan,  to  the  Roman  emperors,  to  Oriental  gods 
especially  Mithras  and  Cybele,  and  finally  a  Christian 
basilica.  But  the  best  way  to  study  the  cults  of  Ostia 
is  to  read  the  interesting  book  written  by  Professor  Lily 
Taylor,  for  the  ruins  of  the  temples  that  you  visit  have 
no  labels,  indeed  many  are  mere  stone  foundations, 
vague  outlines  of  former  halls  and  vestibules  and  bases 
of  columns.  A  few  have  more  character.  The  so- 
called  Temple  of  Vulcan  stands  high  and  magnificent 
on  its  lofty  platform,  three  sides  of  the  great  walls 
towering  up  above  its  long  entrance  flight  of  steps.  This 
ruin  of  the  second  century  after  Christ  dominates  all 
Ostia  and  for  this  reason  probably  was  attributed  to 
Vulcan,  the  most  important  god  in  a  city  where,  from 
the  docks  and  the  storehouses  of  grain,  there  was  al- 
ways danger  of  fire.  More  probably  this  was  the 
Campidoglio  with  the  forum  in  front  of  it  and  so  per- 
haps should  be  assigned  to  Jupiter,  or  to  the  goddess 
Roma  and  Augustus. 

Equally  impressive  are  the  underground  chapels 
sacred  to  the  Phrygian  god,  Mithras.  Enter  the  large 
one  next  "the  house  of  Apuleius"  near  the  Corporation 
building  and  try  to  get  its  atmosphere.  It  is  a  long 
narrow  room  with  a  central  passage  six  feet  wide  and 
two  benches  on  either  side  where  the  votaries  knelt. 
Opposite  the  entrance  is  a  cast  of  the  original  altar- 
piece,  always  found  in  these  Mithrea,  a  relief  represent- 


50  Italy  Old  and  New 

ing  the  victorious  young  sun-god  slaying  the  bull  which 
S)  mbolizes  the  powers  of  darkness  in  the  world.  There 
is  an  altar  in  position.  In  the  pavement  near  the  door 
is  a  hole  for  the  blood  of  victims  and  near  it  in  mosaic 
is  wrought  a  knife  of  sacrifice.  There  are  mystic  sym- 
bols on  floor  and  benches,  semicircles,  planets,  signs  of 
the  zodiac  and  of  all  these  you  may  read  in  Professor 
Franz  Cumont's  book  on  this  remarkable  worship.  On 
either  side  of  the  entrance  is  a  figure  of  a  torch-bearer, 
one  with  torch  raised,  the  other  with  torch  lowered, 
and  this  too  had  its  meaning  for  the  faithful  who  came 
to  worship  the  invincible  young  warrior-god  whose  cult 
the  Roman  soldiers  had  brought  back  from  eastern 
lands. 

One  of  the  recent  discoveries  is  a  Christian  basilica 
between  the  granary  and  the  main  street,  at  least  this 
group  of  rooms,  often  rebuilt,  shows  clear  traces  of  the 
rectangular  nave  ending  in  elevated  choir  and  two  large 
apses  on  the  sides  forming  with  the  nave  a  cross  so  that 
probably  it  was  finally  a  Christian  building.  The  most 
surprising  find  in  the  church  is  a  colossal  group  of  Mars 
and  Venus,  a  group  made  of  Parian  marble  and  a  rep- 
lica of  a  type  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ,  the 
Venus  resembling  the  Venus  of  Milo.  These  great 
gods  have  strangely  enough  the  faces  of  a  Roman  em- 
peror and  his  wife,  Commodus  and  Crispina.  The 
group  as  it  stands  under  one  of  the  tremendous  arches 
of  the  National  Museum  in  Rome  is  so  magnificent  that 
it  seems  to  belong  to  those  Baths  of  Diocletian  rather 
than  to  Ostia,  the  port. 

Yet  as  I  write  those  words  I  realize  that  I  am  think- 
ing of  the  ruined  Ostia  of  today,  and  not  of  the  live 
city  of  the  second  and  third  century  after  Christ.  Imag- 
ination needs  to  reconstruct  this  main  street  with  its 


A  Visit  to  Ancient  Ostia  51 

magnificent  public  buildings,  its  large  block  houses,  its 
fountains,  its  statues ;  and  then  try  to  picture  some  great 
fete  day,  the  annual  January  games  in  honor  of  Castor 
and  Pollux,  here  worshipped  as  gods  of  the  sea,  or  the 
spring  festival  of  the  launching  of  the  ship  dedicated  to 
Isis,  if  indeed  that  beautiful  ceremony  which  Apuleius 
describes  did  take  place  at  Ostia  as  we  believe.  That 
account  in  the  eleventh  book  of  Apuleius'  Metamor- 
phoses is  another  passage  to  read  after  you  have  seen 
the  scavi  and  are  resting  at  Ostia  mare  by  the  surf. 
Walter  Pater  retells  in  English  Apuleius'  narrative : 

"At  the  head  of  the  procession,  the  master  of  cere- 
monies, quietly  waving  back  the  assistants,  made  way 
for  a  number  of  women,  scattering  perfumes.  They 
were  succeeded  by  a  company  of  musicians,  piping  and 
twanging,  on  instruments  the  strangest  M arius  had  ever 
beheld,  the  notes  of  a  hymn,  narrating  the  first  origin  of 
this  votive  rite  to  a  choir  of  youths,  who  marched  be- 
hind them  singing  it.  The  tire-women  and  other  per- 
sonal attendants  of  the  great  goddess  came  next,  bear- 
ing the  instruments  of  their  ministry,  and  various 
articles  from  the  sacred  wardrobe,  wrought  of  the  most 
precious  material;  some  of  them  with  long  ivory  combs, 
plying  their  hands  in  wild  yet  graceful  concert  of  move- 
ment as  they  went,  in  devout  mimicry  of  the  toilet. 
Placed  in  their  rear  were  the  mirror-bearers  of  the 
goddess,  carrying  large  mirrors  of  beaten  brass  or  sil- 
ver, turned  in  such  a  way  as  to  reflect  to  the  great  body 
of  worshippers  who  followed,  the  face  of  the  mysterious 
image,  as  it  moved  on  its  way,  and  their  faces  to  it, 
as  though  they  were  in  fact  advancing  to  meet  the 
heavenly  visitor.  They  comprehended  a  multitude  of 
both  sexes  and  of  all  ages,  already  initiated  into  the 
divine  secret,  clad  in  fair  linen,  the  females  veiled,  the 


52  Italy  Old  and  New 

males  with  shining  tonsures,  and  every  one  carrying  a 
sistrum — the  richer  sort  of  silver,  a  few  very  dainty 
persons  of  fine  gold — rattling  the  reeds,  with  a  noise 
like  the  jargon  of  innumerable  birds  and  insects  awak- 
ened from  torpor  and  abroad  in  the  spring  sun.  Then, 
borne  upon  a  kind  of  platform,  came  the  goddess  her- 
self, undulating  above  the  heads  of  the  multitude  as  the 
bearers  walked,  in  mystic  robe  embroidered  with  the 
moon  and  stars,  bordered  gracefully  with  a  fringe  of 
real  fruit  and  flowers,  and  with  a  glittering  crown  upon 
the  head.  The  train  of  the  procession  consisted  of 
the  priests  in  long  white  vestments,  close  from  head 
to  foot,  distributed  into  various  groups,  each  bearing, 
exposed  aloft,  one  of  the  sacred  symbols  of  Isis — the 
corn-fan,  the  golden  asp,  the  ivory  hand  of  equity,  and 
among  them  the  votive  ship  itself,  carved  and  gilt,  and 
adorned  bravely  with  flags  flying.  Last  of  all  walked 
the  high  priest,  the  people  kneeling  as  he  passed  to  kiss 
his  hand." 

The  picture  of  such  a  religious  pageant  helps  us  to 
recall  the  past  life  of  Ostia  by  the  sea  and  perhaps  to 
reconstruct  the  great  central  street,  the  Decumanus,  and 
repeople  it.  I  have  not  begun  to  describe  all  there  is 
to  start  imagination:  the  gates  to  the  city,  the  monu- 
ments along  the  roads,  the  bazaars,  the  mills  of  grain 
and  oil,  the  so-called  imperial  palace,  the  docks,  the 
many  temples,  and  the  most  beautiful  thing  in  all  Ostia 
I  have  not  yet  mentioned,  the  colossal  statue  of  Min- 
erva-Victoria, which  stands  near  the  principal  gate  of 
the  city  on  the  main  street,  a  statue  made  in  the  first 
or  second  century  after  Christ  but  a  type  derived  from 
the  fourth  century  before  Christ,  the  goddess  of  wis- 
dom in  full  panoply  of  armor,  but  given  wings.  She 
Stands  in  the  open,  her  old  Piazza  grass-covered  now, 


TI1K   STATU-:    OF    M  INKR  VA  \KT<  >RI  A    AT    OSTIA 


A  Visit  to  Ancient  Ostia  53 

her  background  the  sky  and  passing  clouds,  a  magnifi- 
cent and  dominant  goddess. 

Usually  people  enter  Ostia  by  the  Street  of  Tombs. 
I  would  see  the  street  of  life,  the  Decumanus,  first  and 
then  go  back  to  the  Via  dei  Sepolcri,  enter  the  Porta 
Romana,  and  walk  up  the  street  of  death.  On  either 
side  tower  tall,  solemn  cypresses.  Very  touching  are 
the  small  columbaria  with  the  little  niches  in  which  stood 
the  urns  containing  the  ashes  of  the  humble.  There 
are  also  beautiful  fragments  of  individual  monuments, 
here  a  Cupid  supporting  a  great  heavy  garland  of  fruit, 
there  a  marble  doorway  flanked  by  fasces,  and  pictur- 
ing the  four  seasons  in  the  guise  of  small  winged  folk, 
Psyche  and  Cupids.  How  much  is  represented  here, — 
the  symbols  of  power,  the  passing  year,  the  door  of 
death !  There  is  another  great  tomb  on  the  Via  Osti- 
ense  whose  inscription  tells  the  story  of  young  Lucius 
Domitius  Fabius  Hermogenes, — how  when  the  young 
knight  was  well  started  in  his  career,  having  been  a  sec- 
retary for  the  aediles  at  Rome,  decurion  at  Ostia  and 
flamen  of  the  deified  Hadrian,  he  died  when  he  was 
holding  the  office  of  aedile  in  Ostia  and  was  given  a 
funeral  at  the  expense  of  the  city  and  an  equestrian 
statue  in  the  forum,  and  his  father  in  appreciation  of 
these  honors  made  a  large  contribution  to  the  city  trea*- 
sury.  How  little  the  world  changes!  Office-holding, 
municipal  service,  public  recognition,  father's  pride, 
then  the  golden  bow  broken,  the  mourners  by  the  tomb, 
then  the  mourners  dead  and  buried,  and  no  one  to  care 
for  the  monument  until  even  it  is  buried  by  nature  her- 
self, and  at  last  the  excavator's  spade  for  the  sake  of 
the  knowledge  of  antiquity  brings  to  light  the  half- 
effaced  inscription. 

But  such  mortuary  musings  do  not  last  long  in  the 


54  Italy  Old  and  New 

sunlight  and  the  open  air  and  the  wind,  and  I  shook 
them  off  as  I  stood  on  the  top  of  the  tower  of  the  Cas- 
tello,  La  Rocca,  gazing  at  the  view  of  the  ruins  by  the 
curving  Tiber,  the  great  plain,  the  sacred  island,  and 
the  gleaming  sea.  Then  I  went  down  to  see  the  little 
Museum  in  the  Castle  and  among  the  fragments  of 
marble  statues,  portrait  busts  and  heads  of  gods,  I 
came  upon  an  exquisite  round  marble  plaque  suspended 
so  that  I  could  see  both  sides,  on  one  a  satyr  playing 
the  double  pipes,  on  the  other  a  Maenad  dancing  in 
joyous  ecstasy.  That  beautiful  little  oscillum  took  me 
back  to  the  zest  for  life  which  makes  every  passing  day 
worth  while,  at  Ostia,  at  Rome,  at  Poughkeepsie,  or  at 
Ulubrae  if,  as  Horace  wrote,  you  have  a  contented 
spirit.  It  was,  with  his  pregnant  "I  have  lived"  in  my 
thoughts  that  I  then  walked  the  two  miles  down  the 
sandy  road  between  the  green  meadow  stretches  to  the 
invigorating  salt  air,  the  rhythm  of  the  waves,  and  a 
plunge  in  the  surf. 


VI 

ITALIAN  CROWDS  AND  THEIR  TEMPER 

IN  the  annual  art  exhibition  in  Rome  this  spring 
one  large  canvas  represented  an  Italian  crowd. 
A  great  group  of  workers  was  following  two  men 
whose  upturned  faces  had  a  certain  fanatic  light.  Be- 
side the  leaders  ran  a  woman  carrying  her  baby.  The 
title  of  the  picture,  "The  Strike,"  suggested  that  the 
artist  had  wished  to  portray  a  part  of  the  great  indus- 
trial movements  which  are  signs  of  Italy's  growth  today, 
but  as  I  studied  his  portrayal,  I  felt  that  he  had  failed 
signally.  His  crowd  had  no  character.  They  were 
blindly  following  leaders  who  were  blind  also.  They 
all  like  sheep  had  gone  astray.  Not  so  pitiful  have 
been  the  Italian  crowds  that  I  have  seen.  I  thought  I 
could  do  better  with  such  a  subject.  I  resolved  to  try 
a  picture  of  Italian  crowds  and  their  temper. 

Of  course,  the  writer  has  this  great  advantage  over 
the  artist  that  he  can  give  like  a  cinema  not  one  scene 
but  scores  in  succession  to  produce  his  effect,  and  I 
should  be  at  a  loss  in  painting  Italian  crowds  if  I  had  to 
select  only  one :  I  have  been  in  so  many  and  diverse. 
I  think  I  will  beg-in  with  children  and  churches,  for  in 
Italy  even  the  babies  are  gregarious. 

Christmas  is  so  peculiarly  the  children's  season  that 
I  was  not  surprised  to  find  part  of  Rome  surrendered  to 
them.  They  had  almost  seized  the  Campidoglio,  for 
on  Sunday,  December  twenty-sixth,  the  stairs  leading 

55 


56  Italy  Old  and  New 

from  the  Piazza  of  the  Capitol  to  Santa  Maria  in 
Aracocli  was  a  veritable  rag-fair  for  the  Small.  Hun- 
dreds of  persons,  every  group  with  a  child  or  with 
several,  were  moving  up  and  down  the  steps  around  the 
stands  where  all  sorts  of  little  toys  were  being  sold : 
tiny  cradles  with  candy  bambini  in  them,  little  jointed 
marionette  figures  dressed  in  every  conceivable  costume, 
miniature  sets  of  dishes,  Japanese  parasols,  noisy 
squawkers,  balloons  of  all  colors.  The  prices  were  in- 
finitesimal. "Otto  soldi  per  un  bambolone"  I  heard 
one  hawker  shout.  But  the  children  happily  clutched 
their  little  purchases  and  carried  them  into  the  church. 
For  the  scene  on  the  steps  of  Santa  Maria  in  Aracoeli 
was  only  a  prelude  to  the  real  business  of  the  day,  the 
recitations  of  the  children  in  the  church  in  immemorial 
Christmas  custom.  Inside  I  found  the  most  marvellous 
Presepio  I  saw  in  Rome,  for  the  life-size  figures  and 
beautiful  effects  of  lighting  gave  an  almost  unearthly 
beauty  to  the  scene, where  all  the  hosts  of  heaven,  above 
shining  crescent  moon  and  stars,  looked  down  on  the 
manger,  in  front  of  which,  surrounded  by  Mary  and 
Joseph,  Saint  John  and  the  kings,  lambs  and  doves, 
stood  the  wonder-working  Bambino.  His  stiffly-bound 
little  figure  was  ablaze  with  the  jewels  and  gold  of  vo- 
tive gifts,  his  head  wore  an  ornate  golden  crown  with 
which  a  Pope  once  rewarded  his  miracles,  but  I  am 
sure  no  present  ever  pleased  him  more  than  the  Christ- 
mas recitations  of  the  little  Italians.  Opposite  the  Pre- 
sepio on  a  small,  high,  wooden  platform  constructed 
against  a  tall  gray  column  the  children  stood  and  recited 
their  pieces  to  the  sacred  Bambino  facing  them.  They 
were  little  tots,  from  five  to  ten,  I  should  judge,  and 
naturally  greatly  excited,  their  cheeks  flushed,  their  eyes 
sparkling,  but  their  sweet,  high  voices  were  clear  and 


Italian  Crowds  and  Their  Temper    57 

certain,  their  many  little  gestures  expressive,  their  mien 
most  earnest.  Only  one,  very  small,  made  a  mistake 
and  had  to  begin  over  again  amid  derisive  giggles  of 
naughty  little  boys  below  her,  but  the  second  time  she 
was  word  perfect.  It  was  an  ordeal,  for  a  large  crowd 
stood  listening,  not  only  proud  parents,  but  priests, 
soldiers,  foreigners  and  also  little  friends.  I  saw  many 
a  Small  One  lifted  up  on  father's  shoulder  to  see;  and 
up  over  the  crowd  floated  luminous  pink  and  blue  bal- 
loons whose  strings  were  clutched  below  by  tiny  hands. 
It  was  all  a  Babies'  Day,  a  remarkable  public  oppor- 
tunity for  the  self-expression  of  infancy,  and  the  crowd 
that  watched  and  listened  was  as  happy  as  you  would 
expect  it  to  be  in  a  nation  that  adores  children. 

A  church  festival  that  was  almost  another  children's 
day  was  the  blessing  of  the  lambs  at  Sant'  Agnese  fuori 
le  Mura  on  January  twenty-first.  The  little  church  was 
crowded  long  before  the  ceremony  and  as  we  stood 
listening  to  preliminary  masses,  I  noticed  how  many 
children  were  there  as  well  as  the  long  row  of  young 
girls  in  white  veils  kneeling  on  the  steps  of  the  choir  for 
their  first  communion.  It  was  fitting,  for  little  Saint 
Agnes  suffered  martyrdom  at  thirteen  and  because  the 
lamb  is  a  symbol  of  her  infant  purity,  the  two  lambs 
whose  wool  is  to  be  used  to  make  the  archbishop's  robe 
are  brought  to  Saint  Agnes'  church  for  benediction. 
The  crowd,  children  included,  was  quietly  devout  in  the 
beauty  of  the  church  where  many  candles,  burning  in 
high  crystal  chandeliers,  cast  their  light  on  the  delicate 
alabaster  statue  of  the  Saint,  on  the  mulberry  porphyry 
of  the  baldachino  columns,  on  the  dull  gold  of  the  apse 
mosaics.  But  when  at  last  the  organ  began  to  play  and 
the  choir  to  sing,  the  excitement  was  so  intense  that, 
most  incongruously,  two  carabinieri  had  to  make  a  pas- 


58  Italy  Old  and  New 

sage  through  the  crowd  for  the  two  beadles  of  San 
Giovanni  Laterano  who  bore  in  the  lambs.  The  beas- 
ties  lay  in  their  baskets,  very  white  and  good,  decked 
with  pink  and  blue  ribbons  and  flowers,  and  never 
lifted  their  voices  at  the  high  altar  through  the  arch- 
bishop's long  prayer,  nor  indeed  in  their  difficult  reces- 
sional when  the  ardent  crowd  all  tried  to  pat  them  and 
the  children,  touching  them  with  affectionate  hands 
cried  shrilly:  "Addio,  addio."  To  me  the  lambs  were 
no  more  self-controlled  than  the  children  in  their  quiet 
devotion,  and  their  loving  calls.  I  was  glad  that  friend 
of  children,  Kenneth  Grahame,  was  there,  for  when  I 
saw,  above  all  the  Italians,  his  magnificent  head  with 
white  hair  and  moustache,  ruddy  out-door  coloring, 
intent  blue  eyes,  and  the  sudden  smile  of  a  young  god, 
I  felt  that  he  would  understand  in  what  a  golden  age 
the  Italian  children  live,  amid  beauty  and  spontaneity. 
The  period  of  adolescence  demands  more  vivacious 
self-expression  than  childhood  and  it  is  not  strange,  in 
this  era  of  world-strikes  and  group  action,  to  find  the 
students  in  Italy  banding  together  in  public  demonstra- 
tions which  are  as  innocent  as  they  are  lively.  In  Rome, 
at  some  small  crisis  they  gather  in  the  streets,  are 
peaceably  dispersed  by  the  Guardie  Regie,  dash  around 
winding  ways  to  some  more  obscure  Piazza,  sing  their 
songs,  begin  their  speeches,  again  are  scattered.  I  saw 
the  young  Fascisti  here  one  afternoon  when  they  be- 
lieved that  national  spirit  needed  exhilaration  marching 
up  the  Corso  Umberto,  singing  the  Hymn  of  Mameli, 
and  calling  to  all  patriots  to  display  the  Tricolor,  and 
from  Palazzi,  office  windows  and  shops,  men  looked  out 
tolerantly  and  with  good-humored  response  unfurled 
their  flags  until  the  Corso  was  brilliant  with  the  waving 
red,  white  and  green.   A  more  typical  student  agitation 


Italian  Crowds  and  Their  Temper    59 

occurred  in  mid-winter  when  the  students  protested 
against  the  high  price  of  books,  declaring  in  public 
meetings,  with  a  surprisingly  serious  ardor,  that  many 
of  them  could  not  afford  to  study.  There  was  some 
glass-breaking  in  the  large  and  expensive  bookstores 
and  a  few  arrests,  but  their  own  orators  with  extreme 
good  sense  exhorted  them  to  show  the  self-control 
which  their  just  cause  demanded  and  not  to  give  occa- 
sion to  anarchists  to  laugh  in  their  sleeves  and  point 
derisive  fingers  at  the  outbreaks  of  those  who  pretend 
to  be  upholders  of  education,  discipline  and  law.  I  was 
especially  interested  in  finding  that  again  and  again  the 
students  united  for  joint  expression,  achieved  free 
speech,  and  maintained  self-control  in  action. 

Besides  these  crowds  of  the  Very  Young  there  are 
crowds  of  Intellectuals,  "High-brows"  they  would  be 
dubbed  in  America,  who  gather  in  overwhelming  num- 
bers for  music,  for  classical  plays  and — more  surprising 
— for  lectures.  The  crowds  of  men  who  assemble  for 
band-concerts  in  every  small  city  as  well  as  on  the  Pincio 
in  Rome  are  not  amazing,  for  such  music  in  the  open  air 
always  has  a  popular  appeal,  but  it  was  surprising  to 
find  in  mid-summer  at  Verona  the  old  amphitheater 
packed  to  the  top  with  thousands  who  had  come  from 
all  over  Italy  to  see  grand  opera.  It  was  thrilling  to  be 
a  part  of  that  great  Italian  audience  which  under  the 
full  moon  watched  the  magnificent  spectacle  of  Boito's 
"Mefistofele"  so  breathlessly  and  at  the  end,  rising, 
cheered  and  applauded  so  madly,  a  proud  people,  sen- 
sing all  the  great  past  which  the  building  represented, 
responding  to  all  the  beauty  of  their  eternally  creative 
genius. 

I  was  not  surprised  to  find  the  theater  largely  at- 
tended, for  the  Italians  in  every-day  life  are  such  facile 


60  Italy  Old  and  New 

and  expressive  actors  that  this  form  of  art  cannot  but 
be  highly  developed  and  hugely  enjoyed.  A  novelty 
for  me  was  the  children's  theater,  that  Teatro  dei  Pic- 
coli  where  day  after  day  all  winter  at  five  the  marion- 
ettes entertain  an  audience  of  little  people  with  such 
delightful  performances  as  "Guerin  Meschino,"  "Gian- 
ni da  Parigi,"  "Venti  Mila  Leghe  sotto  il  Mare,"  yes 
and  even  with  "La  Tempesta"  1  For  the  Teatro  dei 
Piccoli  was  not  to  be  outdone  by  the  Argentina  or  the 
Valle  in  producing  Shakespeare.  My  greatest  theatrical 
surprise  was  to  find  that  more  Shakespeare  is  being 
given  in  Rome  than  in  New  York, — "Othello,"  "King 
Lear,"  "The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,"  "Romeo  and 
Juliet"  among  the  plays  of  the  winter,  and  the  large 
audiences  which  evidently  justified  the  productions  were 
as  keenly  responsive  to  both  the  tragedy  and  the  comedy 
as  they  were  naturally  to  such  Italian  plays  as  "II 
Beffardo,"  "La  Cena  delle  Beffe"  and  D'Annunzio's 
"La  Gioconda"  and  "La  Fiaccola  sotto  il  Moggio." 
It  was  natural  that  "Othello"  and  "Romeo  and  Juliet" 
should  each  be  "molto  simpatico"  to  Italian  hearts,  but 
the  very  British  and  very  roisterous  Falstaff  was  as 
quickly  understood  by  the  Italian  sensitiveness  to  per- 
sonality, however  new  and  strange. 

Intellectual  curiosity  is  as  much  a  national  trait  as 
it  was  of  the  Greeks  when  St.  Paul  proclaimed  that 
they  always  wished  to  see  and  hear  some  new  thing. 
Italian  curiosity,  however,  focuses  as  much  on  the  old 
as  on  the  new.  A  nation  that  must  always  have  a  live 
wolf  on  the  Campidoglio  in  memory  of  Romulus'  kindly 
nurse  is  one  that  cherishes  traditions  and  monuments 
even  to  the  point  of  desiring  knowledge  about  them. 
Sunday  after  Sunday  you  may  see  in  the  Forum  a  great 
throng   of   men,  women   and   children,   many  poorly 


Italian  Crowds  and  Their  Temper    61 

dressed,  about  some  lecturer  who  is  explaining  the 
history  of  some  building.  The  list  of  announcements 
in  the  papers  for  such  Sunday  lectures  is  long.  Then 
there  are  also  the  classical  trips  in  or  near  Rome  made 
under  the  auspices  of  some  society.  One  such  gita 
which  I  attended  was  conducted  by  Commendatore 
Tambroni  to  Frascati  and  Tusculum  and  there  fifty 
people  from  Rome  followed  him  up  the  long  green  road 
to  the  Roman  theater  on  the  hill  to  sit  in  the  old  seats 
for  an  hour's  lecture  on  the  history  of  Tusculum.  And 
this  was  a  group  not  only  of  scholars,  but  of  artists  and 
professional  men  with  their  wives  and  daughters.  In 
Commendatore  Tambroni's  talks  in  the  city,  in  the 
Michael  Angelo  cloisters  of  the  National  Museum  and 
on  the  Passeggiata  Archeologica  beyond  the  Arch  of 
Constantine,  not  only  such  a  nucleus  of  the  Really  In- 
terested was  present,  but  the  Passing  Crowd  stopped 
and  stayed,  small  boys  wriggling  through  the  audience 
to  the  front  for  a  better  view,  stray  soldiers  standing 
attention,  priests  foregoing  prayers,  beggars  fringing 
the  outskirts  of  the  crowd,  all  quietly  attentive  to  ac- 
counts of  some  ancient  tombstone,  mutilated  statue, 
ruined  temple.  Both  the  numbers  and  the  interest  in 
such  archaeological  talks  are  indicative  of  the  Italian 
reverence  for  the  past. 

This  innate  sense  of  reverence  in  the  race  is  mani- 
fested always  in  the  presence  of  death,  no  Italian  fail- 
ing to  stop  with  lifted  hat  when  a  funeral  passes.  Such 
reverence  at  times  projects  itself  into  action,  conspicu- 
ously in  the  after-war  organization  of  the  Fascisti, 
groups  of  young  men  who  in  the  name  of  their  five 
hundred  thousand  brothers  dead  in  the  war  have  banded 
to  try  to  make  realities  out  of  some  of  those  ideals-in- 
words  for  which  they  fought.    Such  reverence  at  other 


62  Italy  Old  and  New 

times  acts  as  all  inhibitive  force  to  restrain  violence. 
Last  summer  in  Ilorence  when  the  industrial  agitations 
were  at  their  height  and  the  workmen  had  assumed 
control  of  the  operation  of  the  factories,  one  of  the 
greatest  experiments  ever  countenanced  by  a  govern- 
ment, in  the  midst  of  some  street  excitement,  one  of  the 
Carabinieri  was  accidentally  killed  in  the  performance 
of  his  duty.  I  saw  his  funeral  cortco  pass  the  beautiful 
facade  of  the  Cathedral  while  all  Florence,  hushed  and 
reverent,  stood  in  silent  honor  to  his  martyrdom.  Amer- 
ican newspapers  may  proclaim  such  an  episode  as  his 
death  a  vign  of  revolution.  One  who  lives  here  con- 
siders it  remarkable  that  when  Italy  is  making  industrial 
and  social  experiments  with  a  rapidity  hardly  paralleled 
in  thf  world,  although  feeling  runs  high  and  clashes 
bet?  '.en  factions  come,  so  few  lives  in  proportion  to 
fche  great  numbers  involved  have  been  lost,  such  gen- 
eral balance  has  been  preserved,  such  crucial  experi- 
ments have  been  made. 

Watching  the  great  game  of  politics  here  this  winter, 
f  have  been  impressed  with  the  fact  that  in  the  political 
life  as  well  as  the  industrial,  the  temper  of  the  people 
is  shaping  its  own  future  through  experiment.  The 
Socialist  House  of  Deputies  was  in  itself  a  great  na- 
tional experiment,  the  Socialist  majority  being  elected 
in  an  after-war  reaction  when  peace  and  bread  were 
compelling  slogans  for  votes,  and  the  experiment  went 
on  until  the  astute  Minister  of  the  Interior,  seeing  that 
the  nation  (no  millennium  arriving)  was  tired  of  con- 
stant obstructionism  in  Parliament  and  social  agitation 
in  public  that  incited  unbalanced  anarchists  to  violence 
like  that  in  the  Milan  theater,  dismissed  the  Camera 
and  called  for  the  elections  which  diminished  the  Social- 
ist numbers  and  united  most  of  the  other  parties  in  a 


Italian  Crowds  and  Their  Temper    63 

Nationalist  block.  I  saw  the  temper  of  the  Socialist 
Camera  at  an  ordinary  session,  extraordinary  enough 
in  my  eyes,  though  most  of  the  speeches  were  as  dull  as 
those  of  the  average  college  faculty  meeting.  Academic 
circles,  however,  manifest  no  such  freedom  of  expression 
as  found  vent  there,  for  Deputies  showed  their  personal 
reactions  to  speeches  at  the  moment,  hurled  invectives, 
anathematized  and  howled  together  while  De  Nicola 
in  the  chair  shook  continuously  a  huge  bronze  bell  that 
was  noisy  but  ineffective.  All  this  was  over  a  censure 
just  reported  by  a  committee  of  inquiry  on  the  pecula- 
tions of  a  certain  Socialist  member.  From  this  bedlam 
the  House  presently  dropped  into  one  of  those  dull  and 
interminable  speeches  by  which  the  Socialists  were 
obstructing  the  proposed  increase  in  the  price  of  bread 
and  though  certain  Deputies  of  the  Center  assured  the 
Honorable  Zanardi  that  all  his  arguments  were  already 
before  them  in  a  printed  statement  which  they  waved, 
he  went  droning  on  until  the  house  was  half  emptied. 
Such  a  session  is  no  fair  representation  of  all  that  the 
Socialists  are  doing  for  Italy  in  getting  the  principles 
of  syndicalism  into  the  national  consciousness  and  in  giv- 
ing publicity  to  the  cause  of  the  workers,  but  having 
promised  much  and  accomplished  less,  they  have  seen 
the  pendulum  swing  back  and  their  power  truncated  by 
the  practical  sense  of  the  populace  which  is  determined 
somehow  to  have  the  work  of  reconstruction  go  on. 
Certainly,  however,  the  Socialists  had  their  day  in  the 
Camera  and  enjoyed  the  greatest  freedom  of  speech. 

I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  present  also  at  the 
Senate  on  an  occasion  that  was  peculiarly  significant. 
The  Senate  is  a  very  different  looking  body  from  the 
Camera,  for  the  members  are  veritably  "fathers"  of 
the  country  appointed  for  life  and  nominated  by  the 


64  Italy  Old  and  New 

king  on  the  basis  of  long  service  in  the  Camera,  dis- 
tinguished work  in  science  or  scholarship  and  dis- 
tinguished service  to  the  state.  One  sees  hoary  heads 
and  well-known  faces, — General  Badoglio  and  Admiral 
Millo,  Vita  Volterra,  mathematician,  Rodolfo  Lanci- 
ani,  archaeologist,  Marconi,  inventor,  Sonnino,  states- 
man;— and  watching  one  feels  that  the  Senate  of  today 
might  be  the  subject  of  as  dignified  an  historical  paint- 
ing as  Maccari's  great  representation  of  it  at  the  time 
of  Cicero  and  Catiline.  The  first  session  I  attended  was 
for  the  discussion  of  the  Treaty  of  Rapallo,  that  corol- 
lary of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  by  which  Italy's  fron- 
tiers have  been  guaranteed  by  land  to  the  north,  but 
left  inadequate  by  sea  to  the  east,  a  compromise  meas- 
ure, as  treaties  are,  to  secure  a  modus  vivendi  during 
a  reconstruction  period.  All  knew  that  the  Treaty  had 
to  be  signed,  for  the  economic  recuperation  of  Italy, 
but  the  bitterness  of  the  day  was  voiced  by  the  new 
senator  from  Zara,  Ziliotto,  who  protested  in  the  name 
of  the  Italianita  of  Dalmatia  against  the  sacrifice  of 
Zara's  sister-cities  on  the  eastern  coast  of  the  Adriatic. 
The  Senate  listened  gravely  until  the  orator  suddenly 
launching  a  tremendous  enconium  of  the  hero  of  Fiume 
declared  that  Italy  could  not  make  peace  against  or 
without  Gabriele  D'Annunzio.  That  name  of  poet- 
aviator-commander,  which  still  so  inflames  the  hearts 
of  young  Italy,  fired  the  bald-headed  fathers  to  a  vocif- 
erous protest  almost  equal  to  those  of  the  Camera,  but 
amidst  hisses  and  cries  of  "Basta,  basta,"  "Enough," 
Ziliotto  calmly  continued  his  praise  of  the  influence,  the 
independence  and  the  patriotism  of  "the  greatest  leader 
of  Italy."  The  Treaty  had  to  be  signed  and  the  terrible 
"five  days  of  Fiume"  at  Christmas-time  had  to  be  en- 
dured by  the  nation  which  now  is  sacrificing  even  its 


Italian  Crowds  and  Their  Temper    65 

most  passionate  hero-worship  to  its  national  life.  The 
temper  of  the  Senate  as  I  saw  it  then  and  at  other  times 
was  a  grim,  sustained  resolution  to  hold  the  country  to 
recuperation. 

National  traits  appear  also  in  the  great  public  feste 
of  anniversary  days.  Such  a  one  was  September  20,  the 
fiftieth  birthday  of  United  Italy.  I  wished  to  share  all 
the  popular  celebrations,  so  the  evening  before  I  went 
up  on  the  Pincio  for  the  illumination.  Two  great  war 
search-lights  or  "reflectors"  were  being  operated  by 
soldiers,  and  first  one  made  a  Milky  Way  of  light  above 
the  avenue  of  trees  through  which  we  ascended  the  hill. 
Soon  they  sent  golden  beams  filtering  down  through 
trees  on  fountains  as  if  Zeus  were  descending  to  Danae. 
Then  suddenly  they  would  flash  on  the  city  below  and 
evoke  St.  Peter's  dome  from  the  dark.  Again  in  a 
moment  they  were  off  to  the  sky  chasing  each  other  in 
great  while  balls,  a  mystic  dance  of  Luna  and  Endym- 
ion.  And  all  the  time  the  band  was  playing  to  their 
madness  and  the  enraptured  crowd  was  watching 
quietly,  proud  of  the  glory  that  is  Rome.  On  the  morn- 
ing of  September  twentieth,  I  stood  in  the  enormous 
crowd  at  the  foot  of  the  Campidoglio  to  see  the  senators 
and  the  deputies  go  up  to  hear  the  speeches  in  the  hall 
of  the  Horatii  and  the  Curiatii.  The  most  moving  part 
of  the  morning  was  not  the  gorgeous  picture  made  by 
tricolor  and  flag  of  Rome,  floating  above  the  Dioscuri 
at  the  top  of  the  steps,  or  the  enthusiasms  of  the  crowd 
as  they  cried  "Viva  il  Re"  when  in  a  great  touring-car 
the  king  dashed  past,  but  the  sight  of  the  Garibaldini 
some  forty  of  them,  old,  old  men  in  scarlet  shirts  and 
caps,  proudly  stumping  up  the  slope  of  the  Capitoline, 
the  heroes  of  the  day  for  the  sake  of  their  youth  when 


66  Italy  Old  and  New 

they   flung  lives   and   fortunes  into   the   cause   of  the 
Thousand. 

Such  days  call  out  the  pride  of  Italy  in  her  history 
and  show  her  unity.  The  spirit  of  the  war,  that  reunion 
of  all  forces  in  a  great,  common  cause,  was  again  evoked 
on  November  fourth,  the  anniversary  of  the  overwhelm- 
ing defeat  of  the  Austrians  at  Vittorio  Veneto.  For 
five  and  a  half  hours  in  the  Piazza  Venezia  I  watched 
the  celebration,  unconscious  of  bodily  fatigue  in  the 
contagious  exaltation  of  the  crowd's  spirit.  The  cere- 
mony which  took  place  before  the  Altar  of  the  Country 
on  the  Monument  of  Vittorio  Emmanuele  was  the 
decoration  by  the  king  of  the  flags  that  had  seen  service 
in  the  war.  The  Piazza  Venezia  was  gradually  sur- 
rounded by  a  cordon  of  soldiers,  conspicuous  among 
them  the  black  Africans  in  baggy  white  trousers,  red 
fezzes  and  red  velvet  jackets,  and  the  mounted  lancers 
along  the  bottom  of  the  Piazza,  magnificently  sitting 
their  great  horses  and  carrying  on  the  tops  of  their 
spears  small  dark-blue  banners.  With  the  striking 
black,  red,  white,  blue  of  the  Carabinieri  and  the  green- 
gray  of  the  soldiers,  the  Piazza  was  already  brilliant 
before  the  Grand  Corteo  arrived.  Promptly  at  nine- 
thirty  the  resplendent  king's  guard  rode  in,  men  who 
seemed  giants  in  black  and  steel  with  long  horse-hair 
crests  flowing  from  glistening  helmets.  There  followed 
the  royal  carriages,  coachmen  and  footmen  in  scarlet 
livery,  a  guard  of  honor  of  army  and  navy  in  each 
carriage,  in  the  first  the  king  who  was  warmly  acclaimed 
by  the  people,  then  Queen  Margherita  and  Queen 
Elena,  the  crown  prince  and  the  young  princesses,  but 
far  more  than  by  any  royalty  was  I  stirred  by  General 
Diaz  who  walked  with  Admiral  de  Revel  at  the  head  of 
"the  army  with  banners." 


Italian  Crowds  and  Their  Temper    67 

After  that  great  commander  of  Vittorio  Veneto 
flowed  a  stream  of  men  in  gree.i  gray  and  dark  blue, 
carrying  the  tricolors,  and  we  realized  anew  what  those 
youths  had  endured  as  we  saw  not  only  flags  rent  to 
mere  streamers,  but  men  carrying  them  who  were  mu- 
tilated in  face  and  body.  Through  the  crowd  at  last 
I  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  great  white  monument 
thronged  with  men  in  uniform  and  across  the  top  of  the 
steps,  before  the  statue  of  Roma,  the  long  rows  of  the 
flags  awaiting  the  king's  recognition.  Above,  five  aero- 
planes were  circling.  Below,  the  Piazza  was  now  filled 
with  ranks  of  soldiers.  The  thoughts  of  those  who 
were  making  the  speeches  and  those  who  watched  were 
with  the  dead  as  much  as  with  the  living  and,  as  the 
mothers  of  the  fallen  laid  a  golden  wreath  upon  the 
altar  of  the  fatherland,  Italy  in  silent  reverence  seemed 
to  reconsecrate  herself  to  united  effort  towards  those 
ideals  of  liberty,  democracy  and  justice  for  which  she 
had  believed  she  was  fighting. 

Such  attempts  to  share  the  experiences  of  many  an 
Italian  crowd  have  made  me,  I  believe,  participate  in 
their  feeling  so  that  I  can  appraise  their  temper.  I  do 
not  forget  the  old  Roman  proverb  "many  men,  many 
minds," 

"quot  homines,  tot  sententia;," 

and  I  know  that  different  groups  have  different  spirits 
and  that  another  person  may  receive  from  them  differ- 
ent impressions  from  mine.  For  myself,  I  have  found 
certain  group  traits  recurring  so  often  that  they  seem 
to  me  national.  One  is  a  warmth  of  feeling  that  makes 
devoted  friends  and  bitter  enemies,  that  easily  strength- 
ens into  worship  for  the  church,  for  a  hero,  or  for  a 
cause  so  that  passionate  ardor  paints  the  national  life 


68  Italy  Old  and  New 

in  Titian's  colors.  Such  feeling,  easily  ebullient,  carries 
its  own  perils,  but  because  it  seeks  and  attains  the  outlet 
of  full  self-expression,  it  is  not  often  surcharged  or 
dangerous.  The  freedom  of  speech  maintained  (not 
always  without  struggles)  in  press,  open  air  meetings, 
public  discussions,  Camera  and  Senate  is  the  greatest 
guarantee  of  the  nation's  sanity,  for  it  proves  that  re- 
stricting fear  is  absent.  The  Italians,  personally  and 
as  a  nation,  so  respect  the  right  to  be  one's  self,  that 
self-expression  is  tolerated  alike  for  individual  and 
group. 

Sensitiveness  to  beauty  is  another  part  of  the  national 
heritage  in  a  country  where  from  childhood  men  have 
the  aesthetic  senses  stimulated  by  nature  and  by  art. 
There  is  a  true  psychology  back  of  Wordsworth's  lines, 

"Beauty  born  of  murmuring  sound 
Shall  pass  into  her  face," 

and  the  eye  as  well  as  the  ear  drinks  unconsciously  that 
magic  draught.  This  aesthetic  sense  of  the  Italians  is 
evinced  not  only  in  the  support  of  various  forms  of  art, 
but  in  the  cultivated  aspect  of  their  public  life  from  the 
beautifying  of  the  Roman  forum  and  the  Palatine  with 
wealth  of  roses,  oleanders,  wistaria,  to  the  smart  ele- 
gance of  the  military  uniforms  and  all  the  brilliant 
pageantry  of  national  celebrations. 

Of  course,  intermingled  with  such  fine  sense  of  form 
is  the  reverence  for  the  past  that  makes  part  of  the 
national  pride,  that  historical  sense  which  sees  not  only 
the  present,  but  looks  before  and  after.  "Italy  can 
afford  to  wait  for  justice,"  a  statesman  remarked,  "for 
she  counts  time,  not  by  hours,  but  by  centuries."  It  is 
an  anomaly  that  hand  in  hand  with  such  reverence  for 


Italian  Crowds  and  Their  Temper    69 

the  past  goes  an  intellectual  curiosity  about  the  untried 
that  is  making  the  Italians  today  such  experimenters  in 
national  problems  that  now  the  workmen  may  try  to  op- 
erate factories,  now  forty  Fascisti,  elected  deputies  on  a 
vague  program  and  with  no  party  affiliations,  may  dash 
into  the  Arena  of  public  life  chanting  "Ci  siamo  noi," 
"We  are  here,"  and  attempt,  like  the  knights  of  the 
round  table,  "to  right  all  wrong."  Perhaps  one  reason 
the  Italians  are  not  afraid  of  experiment  or  of  the  new 
is  because  they  know  how  deep-rooted  and  vital  are 
their  traditions.  Also  the  lightheartedness  that  starts 
many  a  little  song  floating  up  from  the  streets  and  that 
makes  even  beggars  often  so  gay  and  the  good  humor 
which  is  part  of  the  reward  of  living  much  in  the  open 
keep  the  country  sanguine  in  its  worst  moments. 

Moreover,  at  times  of  national  crisis  that  which  binds 
is  far  stronger  than  that  which  sunders.  In  the  war, 
united  Italy  was  reborn,  and  the  memory  of  that  renas- 
cence today  forms  the  subconscious  welding  of  all  fac- 
tions. When  D'Annunzio  in  his  last  days  in  Fiume 
indignant  at  the  "rinunciatori"  in  the  home  govern- 
ment, flung  off  his  war  decorations  and  declared  him- 
self an  outlaw,  one  of  the  humorous  papers  had  a  skit 
representing  the  conversation  of  two  Deputies  in  Rome. 

"What  a  pity  D'Annunzio  has  given  up  his  country!" 
"Don't  worry.     If  any  foreign  nation  attacks  Italy,  D'An- 
nunzio will  be  Italian  again." 

That  patriotism  which  holds  the  most  volatile  is  deep- 
rooted  in  the  common  soul.  Skirmishes  between  Com- 
munists and  Fascisti  may  keep  daily  life  agitated  and 
hot  feeling  and  free  speech  may  create  abroad  the 
mirage  of  an  Italian  revolution,  but  here  one  sees  the 
fundamental  patriotism  of  the  individual  Italian  and 


70  Italy  Old  and  New 

knows  that  the  reverence  for  past  history  and  the  devo- 
tion to  a  growing  state  are  stronger  than  the  fisticuffs  of 
the  hour.  When  again  shall  come  the  call  "Brothers  of 
Italy,  Italy  awakes," 

"Fratelli  d'ltalia 
L'ltalia  s'e  desta," 

together  all  her  sons,  shoulder  to  shoulder  in  one  great 
crowd,  will  respond  with  a  single  devotion, 

"Stringiamci  a  coorte 
Siam  pronti  alia  morte: 
Italia  chiamo." 


VII 

TEA-DRINKING  IN  ROME 

THE  first  lesson  that  many  Americans  who  come 
to  Rome  have  to  learn  of  the  Eternal  City  is  the 
art  of  relaxation.  Days  in  Italy  are  much 
longer  and  much  more  leisurely  than  in  the  United 
States.  You  may  make  the  morning  what  you  will,  for 
the  light  breakfast  served  in  your  room  with  your  news- 
paper takes  no  time  and  readjusts  you  to  a  new  day 
without  the  strain  of  liking  your  fellow  beings  before 
you  have  had  your  coffee.  After  lunch  you  are  forced 
to  take  a  siesta,  for  all  business  is  suspended  from 
twelve  to  three,  and  if  you  wish  to  venture  out  in  the 
warm  sunshine,  you  will  find  even  the  cab-drivers  wak- 
ing reluctantly  and  nothing  except  the  Museums  open 
to  you.  Dinner  will  not  be  served  until  eight,  so  by 
half-past  five  it  is  well  to  rest  again  and  somewhere 
find  a  place  for  table-talk,  that  delightful  exchange  of 
ideas  and  confidences  which  whets  personality  and 
makes  life  more  scintillating. 

The  Italians  agree  so  fully  with  Emerson's  dictum, 
"the  law  of  one  to  one  is  necessary  for  conversation," 
that  the  tea-tables  are  generally  small,  but  if  you  must 
be  more  social,  obliging  camericri  will  accommodate 
you  with  extra  chairs  or  combine  multiples  of  tables. 
The  Romans  will  sip  hot  black  coffee  while  English  or 
Americans  linger  over  tea-cups,  but  in  hot  weather  all 
indulge  in  the  famous  and  fancy  ices  of  the  country, 

71 


12  Italy  Old  and  New 

cassata  Siciliana,  ijclali,  caffc  yranita  con  panna,  spu- 
monc.     How  delicious  the  very  names  are! 

The  mood  of  any  day  may  be  satisfied  by  a  special 
atmosphere  for  one's  tea  hour  and  a  little  jaunting 
about  soon  tells  you  where  to  go  for  the  best  food, 
what  types  of  people  you  see  in  different  tea-rooms, 
where  you  may  drink  to  music,  where  you  may  loaf  and 
invite  your  soul  out-doors. 

English  tea,  English  muffins,  Scotch  marmalade  and 
the  British  you  will  find  at  "Miss  Babington's"  in  the 
Piazza  di  Spagna.  A  typical  habitue  was  a  dear  old 
Scotchman  who  always  sat  in  a  well-sheltered  corner 
opposite  the  door  and  responded  to  my  inquiry  for  his 
health  with  a  brisk:  "Thank  you  kindly,  I'm  in  my 
frail  usual."  All  during  the  war  he  had  knitted  mufflers 
and  socks  for  Italian  soldiers  and  in  his  devotion  to  his 
second  country  he  had  even  sold  his  treasured  first  edi- 
tion of  Keats  for  funds  to  give  the  blinded,  and  now 
often  of  an  afternoon  after  reading  an  hour  or  two  in 
the  sacred  Keats'  rooms  over  the  Spanish  steps,  he 
would  come  to  "Miss  Babington's"  for  his  tea  as  do 
so  many  of  the  foreigners  who  live  in  sight  of  Bernini's 
ship  fountain.  You  can  go  in  Miss  Wilson's  and  Piale's 
circulating  libraries  in  the  square  and  exchange  your 
books  or  run  into  Cook's  or  the  American  Express  for 
information  about  your  next  trip,  or  buy  Christmas 
presents  of  Roman  scarves  and  Roman  pearls  across 
the  street,  or  get  an  armful  of  fresh  flowers  for  five 
lire  on  the  steps  above  the  fountain,  and  then  having 
enjoyed  the  conveniences  of  the  Piazza  di  Spagna,  sit 
down  in  Miss  Babington's  to  read  your  paper  or  to  talk 
polite  nothings,  for  here  tables  are  too  close  for  con- 
fidences or  a  free  getting  acquainted. 

"Old  England"  is  another  tea  center  for  the  English 


Tea- Drinking  in  Rome  73 

and  Americans,  especially  in  winter  when  for  us  chilly 
folk  there  are  two  open  wood  fires.  There  is  music 
too  after  five,  the  tea-pots  do  not  drip,  there  are  com- 
fortable wicker-chairs  for  those  who  loathe  sitting  up 
straight  and  after  your  shopping  in  the  great  depart- 
ment store  of  which  this  tea-room  makes  the  top  floor, 
you  can  relax  here,  watching  stout  British  matrons  read 
Mrs.  Asquith's  Autobiography  by  the  fire,  or,  in  the 
outer  circle  of  tables  back  of  the  columns,  handsome 
Italian  gentlemen  talk  to  their  quietly  dressed  wives  or 
their  loudly  bejewelled  innamorate. 

A  more  purely  Italian  place  is  La  Tour's  in  the  S.  S. 
Apostoli,  the  upstairs  room,  that  magnificent  baroque 
salon  of  the  old  Palazzo  Colonna  where  crystal  chande- 
liers sparkle  and  marble  statues  watch  the  crowd  below. 
Here  about  six  every  day  in  the  week,  Sunday  included, 
you  will  find  the  room  crowded  with  fashionable  Ital- 
ians. More  interesting  to  me  is  the  historic  little  Caffe 
Greco  just  off  the  Piazza  di  Spagna  on  the  Via  Con- 
dotti.  Its  long  narrow  space  is  divided  by  partitions 
and  pillars  into  five  small  rooms  each  of  which  has 
its  own  character.  In  the  front  one,  an  hexagonal 
glass  case  in  the  center  displays  autograph  letters  from 
famous  habitues  and  pictures  of  the  Caffe  in  times  past, 
and  on  this  case  presiding  jauntily  and  incongruously 
over  the  room  stands  a  bronze  statuette  of  Mark 
Twain.  At  one  end  of  the  room  is  a  small  side-board 
gay  with  wine-bottles.  Along  the  sides  elderly  gentle- 
men solemnly  indulge  in  chess  and  checkers.  In  the 
next  two  rooms,  the  light  is  artificial  and  dim,  and  here 
journeys  are  apparently  ending  in  lovers'  meetings,  for 
smart  officers  always  seem  to  be  greeting  their  ladies 
after  long  absence.  How  the  art  of  coquetry  can  be 
practised  under  the  quizzical  and  amused  eyes  of  the 


74  Italy  Old  and  New 

Pan-Statue  facing  them  I  cannot  imagine.  The  two 
rear  rooms  are  long  and  narrow.  On  the  right-hand 
one  under  the  sky-lights  you  will  find  writers  dictating 
to  secretaries,  men  with  ruffled  hair  composing,  artists 
making  small  pencil  sketches,  ordinary  persons  reading 
the  last  newspaper.  In  the  other  long  room  there  is  a 
billiard  table,  and,  beyond,  the  bar  where  a  very  hand- 
some, dark-haired,  dark-eyed  youth  will  show  you 
above  his  head  an  oil  sketch  of  a  beautiful  fair  baby  boy 
and  laughingly  tell  you  "That  is  myself"  while  he 
points  out  the  artist's  inscription: 

"A  Mario  Gubinelli 
Ottimo  fra  i  bambini 
pessimo  fra  i  modelli." 

The  rooms  are  all  decorated  with  oil  paintings  of  Italy 
and  Rome,  dark  old-fashioned  paintings  of  the  Cam- 
pagna,  of  Soracte,  of  Tivoli's  water-falls,  of  the  Colos- 
seum, the  Arch  of  Titus  and  the  Palatine,  and  in  among 
these  panels  are  set  medallion  relief  portraits  of  famous 
past  habitues,  Liszt,  Wagner,  Thorwaldsen,  Gogol. 
You  can  see  them  all  if  you  go  early  in  the  afternoon. 
Be  sure  not  to  miss  the  miniatures  painted  by  the  pro- 
prietor, Signor  Gubinelli,  that  hang  in  a  case  at  the 
farthest  end  of  the  Caffe,  exquisite,  artistic  work. 

For  classical  atmosphere  instead  of  artistic,  seek  the 
Basilica  Ulpia  and  do  not  be  misled  by  the  name  to 
suppose  you  are  going  to  worship.  A  humorous  paper 
in  reporting  a  Sunday  conversation  laughed  at  just  this 
chance  of  error. 

"Have  you  been  to  church  today?" 

"Yes,  I  went  to  the  Basilica  Ulpia." 

"Oh  !  Then  you  certainly  were  in  heaven." 
You  must  understand  that  the  Basilica  Ulpia  is  not  a 


Tea-Drinking  in  Rome  75 

church  at  all  but  a  very  elegant  restaurant  built  in  an 
apse  of  the  old  law-court  or  basilica  in  Trajan's  Forum. 
You  enter  from  the  Piazza  of  Trajan's  Column  and 
drink  your  tea  under  the  unadorned  imperial  walls,  and 
you  may  descend  (especially  after  dinner  for  coffee) 
to  a  lower  room  of  the  same  old  structure  where  your 
feet  will  freeze  on  the  great  flat  stones  of  the  original 
pavement  and  imperial  awe  or  shivers  from  walls  so 
ancient  create  a  need  for  more  and  more  caffe  nero. 

The  Basilica  Ulpia  from  its  classical  heritage  might 
well  be  a  modern  center  of  political  life,  but  you  will 
not  find  it  so.  To  see  the  Deputies  of  Rome,  you  must 
go  to  Aragno's,  the  great  caffe  on  the  Corso  Umberto, 
and  watch  the  throngs  of  politicians  that  pour  over  there 
from  Montecitorio,  to  sip  coffee  and  liqueurs  and  make 
the  politics  of  Rome  over  the  cups.  Men  sit  out  at  the 
tables  on  the  sidewalk,  women  pass  by  on  the  other  side 
and  this  is  a  pity  because  the  Aragno  ices  are  delicious. 

Both  men  and  women,  however,  may  enter  the 
"Golden  Gate,"  or  on  warm  days  sit  out  in  front  of  that 
charming  tea-room  at  the  top  of  the  Via  Veneto,  look- 
ing at  the  great  Aurelian  wall  and  under  its  round 
arches  at  the  green  vistas  of  the  Villa  Borghese.  Half 
the  Roman  world  drives  by,  half  sits  here  drinking  to 
dreamy  music  and  watching  the  passing  show. 

One  can  be  even  cooler  in  summer  on  the  Terrace  of 
the  Rinascente.  You  step  into  the  store  from  the  con- 
fusion and  noise  of  the  Corso  Umberto,  take  a  rapid 
elevator  to  the  top  of  the  building  and  walk  out  on  a 
wide  terrace  overhung  with  trailing  green  of  rose- 
bushes and  wistaria,  surrounded  with  gardenias,  and  set 
with  wicker  chairs  and  tables  covered  with  gay  cloths 
in  blue  and  white,  red  and  white,  yellow  and  white  pat- 
terns.   The  chief  attraction  is  not  the  "specialty"  of  the 


76  Italy  Old  and  New 

Rinascente,  a  marvellous  concoction  of  strawberry  ice, 
fresh  wild  strawberries  and  whipped  cream,  but  the 
views  all  over  Rome,  of  roof-tops,  spires,  campanili,  of 
the  green  Pincian,  and  the  Janiculum.  My  favorite 
table  is  one  where  I  can  look  down  on  the  column  of 
Marcus  Aurelius  and  the  bubbling  fountain  below  it  and 
the  busy  crowd  passing  so  rapidly  and  so  quietly.  Up 
here  one  is  far  from 

"the  noise  and  fret  and  fume  of  town," 
fumum  et  opes  strepitumque  Romae. 

But  the  most  beautiful  and  thoroughly  Roman  spot 
for  tea  or  for  dinner  outdoors  is  the  Castello  dei  Cesari 
on  the  Aventine.  On  your  way  up,  driving  or  walking, 
you  will  go  to  the  Francescan  church  of  Santa  Sabina 
for  its  peaceful  beauty  of  gray  columns  and  marble 
chancel  and  to  the  Villa  of  the  Knights  of  Malta  for  the 
glimpse  of  Saint  Peter's  through  the  key-hole  at  the  end 
of  the  long  green  way.  Then  at  sunset  time  you  will 
arrive  at  the  Castello  dei  Cesari  and  taking  a  hurried 
look  at  the  busts  of  the  emperors  in  the  great  red  hall 
inside,  you  will  seek  the  terrace  for  tea  with  the  sunset 
shedding  orange  and  violet  lights  on  the  Palatine's  mas- 
sive imperial  ruins  and  stately  cypresses. 

At  any  and  all  of  these  places,  you  may  hear,  if  your 
ears  are  attuned  to  the  beautiful  Italian  language  and 
if  you  are  not  talking  too  rapidly  yourself,  the  chit- 
chat of  the  hour.  Bits  of  conversation  wafted  to  your 
ears  show  what  is  in  Rome's  mind  from  the  eternal 
newspaper  to  last  night's  opera.  What  is  the  exchange 
today?  Will  the  ministry  fall?  Are  England's  domes- 
tic difficulties  greater  than  Italy's?  Who  drew  the  suc- 
cessful number  in  the  Tombola?  Is  Dina  Galli  or 
Emma  Grammatica  the  more  artistic  actress?    Where 


Tea-Drinking  in  Rome  77 

is  D'Annunzio  now?  How  is  it  that  the  ex-Kaiser  still 
owns  the  Villa  Falconieri  at  Frascati?  Who  is  operat- 
ing the  Fiat  works  at  present?  Can  the  steamship  lines 
continue  service  to  the  United  States  under  the  new 
immigration  laws? 

Suddenly  you  cease  to  hear  the  stray  questions  of  the 
talk  of  others  and  your  mind  instead  of  following  two 
lines  of  thought  is  absorbed  in  one  as  your  companion 
grows  more  interesting.  I  shall  never  forget  one  talk 
up  at  the  Castello  dei  Cesari  this  spring  or  what  a 
young  Sicilian  Lieutenant  told  me. 

It  does  not  matter  how  we  utter  strangers  came  to  be 
there  together  at  tea-time.  The  stupid  details  of  pre- 
liminary introductions  I  will  forego  and  only  state  that 
we  had  never  seen  each  other  before  and  probably 
never  would  again,  and  that  sense  of  detachment  per- 
haps made  him  talk  more  freely  to  me.  The  men  who 
have  fought  say  so  little  about  their  war  experiences 
that  certain  stray  sentences  stick  in  my  mind.  Not  long 
before  a  Captain  had  remarked  to  me :  "I  would  never 
tell  you  what  war  at  the  front  was  like,  but  just  imagine 
a  river  running  red  with  blood,  with  blood!"  An  Al- 
pino  had  emphasized  another  aspect.  "It  was  different 
for  us  up  in  the  mountains,"  he  said.  "We  didn't  have 
the  vermin  of  the  trenches,  and  when  our  officers  died 
we  covered  them  with  the  bright  Alpine  flowers  and 
buried  them  in  the  mountains  where  the  beauty  made  it 
a  little  easier."  A  few  words  may  say  so  much,  but  the 
young  Sicilian  officer  told  me  more,  in  fact  a  little  story, 
which  might  be  called 

"A  Bottle  of  Strega." 

"Yes,  it  is  my  right  arm  that  is  limp,  Signorina.  It 
was  paralyzed  and  doesn't  work  yet,  so  the  doctors  sent 


78  Italy  Old  and  New 

me  back  to  Sicily  for  a  rest  and  now  they  are  going  to 
try  electricity  on  it.  I  get  on  very  well  with  my  left 
hand  as  you  see,  and  I'm  here." 

He  was  the  picture  of  life  with  his  high  Sicilian  col- 
oring, all  bronzed  and  crimson-cheeked,  his  dark  eyes 
glowing. 

"I  was  up  at  Monte  Grappa.  I  was  there  for  months 
and  months.  It  was  very  dangerous,  and  little  by  little 
life  became  different.  Our  minds  were  all  right  and  we 
thought  about  everything,  but  we  did  not  feel  any  more. 
I  don't  know  why  it  was  unless  we  gradually  returned 
to  a  kind  of  wood  life  like  the  animals  because  we  were 
always  in  danger  and  our  minds  were  bent  just  on  keep- 
ing alive.  An  officer  would  be  killed,  some  man  with 
whom  I  had  served  two  years,  who  was  more  to  me 
than  a  brother  and  I'd  just  say  'E  morto,  poverino,' 
'He's  dead,  poor  man!'  and  there  it  was!  I  knew  it, 
but  I  didn't  feel  it  at  all.  One  night  the  Colonel  told 
me  that  the  next  day  we  were  to  take  the  peak  ahead 
from  the  Austrians.  It  was  a  very  dangerous  assault 
and  there  wasn't  much  chance  of  coming  back.  At 
such  a  time  I  thought  of  my  father  and  mother  and 
home,  but  I  didn't  feel  anything.  That  night  I  had  one 
hundred  lire.  I  said  to  myself:  'If  the  Austrians  take 
me  prisoner  tomorrow,  they  will  get  the  one  hundred 
lire,  and  if  I  am  killed,  there  it  is !'  So  I  decided  to  buy 
a  bottle  of  Strega  and  I  treated  the  men  and  we  were 
sipping  it  and  laughing  over  it  when  the  old,  long-faced 
Colonel  came  by  and  called  me. 

"  'How  can  you  go  on  so  to-night?'  he  said.  'Don't 
you  know  the  danger  you  are  going  into  tomorrow?  I 
will  carry  the  important  papers  because  I  shall  be  in 
less  peril  than  you  will.' 

"Well,  we  finished  my  bottle  of  Strega,  and  the  next 


Tea-Drinking  in  Rome  79 

day  we  took  the  peak.  The  old  Colonel  was  killed  and 
I  only  had  my  right  arm  hurt  and  here  I  am.  But  it 
still  all  seems  so  strange,  Signorina.  I  often  wonder 
about  it  and  try  to  think  why  I  was  so  different,  why  I 
felt  nothing,  and  I  cannot  explain  it.  I  think  that  my 
heart  was  paralyzed  then  and  now  it  is  only  my  arm, 
so  it  is  all  very  well.  But  I  always  think  about  that 
night  when  I  have  a  little  glass  of  Strega  like  this." 

For  me  too  now  the  word  Strega  has  an  association 
and  I  never  see  the  golden  'witch'  liqueur  without  re- 
membering that  vivid  young  Sicilian  officer,  so  intensely 
alive  though  partly  broken,  so  merry  and  so  sober,  so 
simple  and  so  brave. 


VIII 

THE  ASPIRATIONS  OF  ITALIAN  WOMEN 


Y 


4  4  "^  ^TOU  are  going  to  write  something  about  the 
aspirations  of  Italian  women,  Signorina? 
But  every  Italian  woman  has  one  and  the 
same  aspiration — husband  and  home."  This  was  the 
declaration  made  to  me  only  a  few  days  ago  by  a  very 
intelligent  young  Italian  lady  who  had  taken  the  degree 
of  letters  from  the  University  of  Bologna  and  has  now 
entered  on  a  professional  career  in  America.  There 
was  merriment  in  her  eyes,  but  sincerity  in  her  tone  as 
we  went  on  to  discuss  the  position  of  women  in  Italy 
before  and  after  the  war.  And  her  frankness  like  that 
of  many  other  Italian  women  in  Italy  with  whom  I 
have  talked  helped  me  to  shape  these  impressions.  I 
call  them  "impressions"  designedly,  for  on  such  a  sub- 
ject statistical  evidence  is  naturally  not  available  and 
daily  contact  and  patient  observation  must  combine  for 
personal  conclusions.  I  had  a  chance  to  talk  with  types 
of  women  as  different  as  a  peasant  living  in  a  straw-hut 
and  the  philanthropic  daughter  of  the  head  of  the  Min- 
istry. But  even  after  all  such  exchange  of  ideas,  I  feel 
that  my  "impressions"  are  so  personal  that  in  the  be- 
ginning I  must  emphasize  that  they  are  just  my  own. 

When  I  keep  hearing  people  repeat  the  truism,  "the 
war  has  made  such  a  difference  in  the  position  of  women 
in  Italy,"  I  wonder  if  they  realize  that  these  new  steps 
towards  freedom  are  only  a  return  to  the  prestige  and 

80 


The  Aspirations  of  Italian  Women  81 

power  which  the  matronae  Romanae  enjoyed  in  the  Re- 
public and  the  Empire.  There  are  two  illuminating  and 
delightful  essays  by  Frank  Frost  Abbott  in  his  book 
"Society  and  Politics  in  Ancient  Rome,"  which  assem- 
ble some  of  the  striking  facts  about  women  in  public 
affairs  in  the  time  of  the  Republic  and  in  trades  and 
professions  during  the  early  Empire.  It  is  amusing  to 
read  how  in  195  B.  C,  the  women  of  Rome  were  tired 
of  war-time  regulations  about  expensive  clothing  and 
joy-rides  in  their  chariots  and  to  secure  a  repeal  of  the 
law  passed  after  the  battle  of  Cannae  did  some  peace- 
able picketing  around  the  forum,  and  assailed  the  doors 
of  certain  high  officials  opposed  to  them  until  their  op- 
position was  withdrawn.  A  nobler  cause  for  the  femin- 
ist movement  came  in  43  B.  C,  when  before  the  menace 
of  war  with  Brutus  and  Cassius  after  Caesar's  death, 
the  Triumvirs  demanded  that  the  richest  women  evalu- 
ate their  property  and  make  large  contributions  to  the 
state.  It  was  then  that  the  women,  led  by  Hortensia, 
appeared  in  the  forum  before  the  Triumvirs'  Tribunal 
and  declared  that  they  would  contribute  to  a  war 
against  a  foreign  enemy,  but  never  to  a  civil  war;  and 
moreover  that  they  should  not  be  asked  to  pay  taxes 
when  they  had  no  share  in  the  government.  We  do  not 
wonder  when  we  hear  of  such  concerted  action  of 
women,  that  individuals  played  a  great  part  in  politics 
through  political  marriages  and  brilliant  salons,  or  that 
the  hands  of  a  Cornelia,  a  Clodia,  a  Julia,  an  Octavia, 
a  Scribonia,  a  Servilia,  a  Fulvia  could  for  a  time  shape 
the  affairs  of  the  world. 

Moreover  political  prestige  was  supplemented  or 
perhaps  founded  on  the  economic  independence  which 
many  women  achieved  by  the  middle  of  the  first  century 
B.  C.    For  the  old  strict  control  which  the  head  of  a 


S2  Italy  Old  and  New 

house  exercised  over  life  and  possessions  of  the  family, 
the  patria  potestas,  became  virtually  a  dead  letter  so 
that  a  woman  of  wealth  under  the  nominal  control  of 
husband  or  guardian  held  her  own  property  and  with  it 
the  prestige  which  possession  of  wealth  gives. 

With  such  new  economic  freedom  of  the  Roman 
matronae,  went  along  a  beginning  of  aspiration  for 
work,  so  that  we  find  women  attempting  to  practise 
medicine  and  law  even  when  they  had  to  disguise  them- 
selves as  men  or  be  called  "Men-women,"  securing  emo- 
tional satisfaction  in  orgiastic  religious  rites,  expressing 
themselves  occasionally  in  literature  and  on  the  stage, 
in  the  mimes,  and  even  entering  into  the  trades  and 
controlling  such  a  large  business  as  that  of  the  making 
of  bricks. 

Now  through  the  vicissitudes  of  the  ages  it  seems 
that  women  in  Italy  have  not  advanced  tremendously 
beyond  the  freedom  which  they  held  in  the  late  repub- 
lic and  early  empire.  As  for  property-owning,  now 
after  marriage  the  husband  holds  all  his  wife's  property 
under  his  own  name  so  that  before  the  law  the  Italian 
matrona  is  not  economically  independent.  Moreover, 
to  an  observer  during  a  winter  in  Rome,  it  did  not  seem 
that  individual  women  were  playing  a  part  in  politics  by 
indirect  influence.  Of  course  recently  a  law  has  been 
passed  extending  the  suffrage  to  women  but  it  is  neces- 
sary to  have  another  decree  before  it  can  become  opera- 
tive, so  that  as  yet  the  women  have  not  exercised  their 
right  or  been  tested  as  citizens. 

In  the  professions,  there  are  some  women  doctors 
and  more  nurses,  some  lawyers  and  many  in  office  work. 
Women  are  finding  self-expression  by  acting  in  both 
comedy  and  tragedy  and  by  singing  in  grand  opera,  and 
there  are  writers  of  such  distinction  as  Grazia  Deledda, 


The  Aspirations  of  Italian  Women  83 

Matilde  Serao  and  Ada  Negri.  But  the  greatest  op- 
portunity for  Italian  women  at  present  is  in  the  field  of 
education;  and  in  this  many  are  engaged,  one  even  hold- 
ing a  professorship  in  Law  in  the  University  of  Rome. 

Aspiration  is  not,  however,  measured  by  attainment 
and  in  the  after-war  Italian  world  perhaps  the  greatest 
advance  for  women  is  in  the  forward  look.  Of  course 
we  must  remember  that  in  general  the  progressive 
women  are  in  the  city  centers  and  that  in  the  country 
districts,  especially  in  the  south,  there  is  much  general 
illiteracy,  and  the  position  of  women  is  unaltered  in 
attainment  or  vision.  Yet  as  I  visited  a  village  of 
capanne  or  straw-huts  near  Monte  Circeo  and  as  I 
watched  in  different  country  regions  the  peasants  work- 
ing in  the  fields  or  gathering  the  olives  or  working  on 
the  vintage,  I  was  impressed  by  their  vigorous  healthy 
bodies  and  by  the  way  in  which  men  and  women  shared 
their  work,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  and  still  I  hear  across 
the  meadows  the  soft  responsive  strains  of  the 
stornello,  the  song  of  peasant  to  peasant  made  out  of 
their  joint  labors. 

So  in  the  little  story  I  have  told  under  the  proverb, 
"Due  cuori,  una  capanna,"  I  have  tried  to  show  the 
normal  happiness  of  "the  sun-burned  wife  of  the  indus- 
trious Apulian."  And  for  all  classes  of  society  in  Italy 
I  believe  that  the  family  is  still  the  center  of  the 
woman's  life.  At  the  other  end  of  the  social  scale  from 
life  in  the  capanne,  the  young  women  of  rank  are  pass- 
ing through  a  transitional  period  now,  for  after  the 
new  freedom  that  they  gained  in  war  work,  many  as 
nurses,  they  find  it  difficult  to  tolerate  arranged  mar- 
riages, or  marriages  in  which  husbands  may  have  the 
old  conventional  ideas  of  the  woman's  sphere  being 
limited  by  the  home.    They  wish  to  go  on  with  some  of 


84  Italy  Old  and  New 

the  lines  of  work  in  which  they  became  interested  and 
they  wish  to  see  a  door  of  escape  open  by  divorce  from 
marriage  which  proves  disastrous.  But  the  difficulties 
of  a  love  marriage  for  the  highborn  Italian  girl  are 
many:  she  must  think  of  rank  and  parentage,  of  re- 
ligion and  convention.  And  she  must  realize  that 
whatever  the  aspiration  of  thinking  Italian  women 
towards  greater  freedom  in  matrimony,  the  Church 
has  planted  its  foot  so  firmly  against  divorce  that  there 
cannot  now  be  experiments  in  the  bonds  of  wedlock. 

Some  young  women  of  the  upper  and  middle  classes 
are  happily  and  tactfully  solving  their  desires  for  both 
homes  and  for  a  more  active  life  by  continuing  after 
marriage  their  social  service  work  for  the  ex-soldiers, 
for  the  blind,  for  the  children  of  dead  soldiers  or  of 
the  poor  and  for  women  who  need  to  be  taught  indus- 
trial arts.  All  the  handiwork  under  the  patronage  of 
great  ladies  from  stencilled  gowns  to  the  lace-making 
of  Burano  has  its  fine  place  in  economic  reconstruction 
of  women's  work.  The  work  for  the  mutilati  and  the 
tubercular  and  the  blind  soldiers  is  a  sacred  national 
duty.  But  most  important  of  all  work  for  the  future 
to  which  women  can  turn  their  hands  is  the  work  for 
the  children. 

I  talked  with  a  woman  doctor,  herself  glowing  with 
life  and  the  mother  of  a  family,  who  was  the  director 
of  an  open-air  school  for  children  just  outside  of  Milan 
and  saw  her  photographs  of  instruction  in  care  of  the 
silk-worm,  of  the  raising  of  grain,  of  horticulture,  of 
the  care  of  animals.  In  Florence,  I  visited  the  Dis- 
pensary of  San  Domenico  where  under  an  Italian  doc- 
tor, Italian  and  American  women  are  working  together 
for  better  health  conditions  in  a  rural  district  and  are 
sending  a  visiting  nurse  out  to  the  homes  where  there 


The  Aspirations  of  Italian  Women  85 

is  need.  In  Rome,  I  talked  with  Mr.  John  Gray,  trea- 
surer of  the  Italian-American  Committee  for  Assistance 
to  Children  and  learned  the  details  of  their  work  in 
maintaining  in  country  districts  those  Asili  Infantili  or 
Kindergarten  Schools  where  little  children  are  looked 
after  and  fed  during  the  day  while  their  parents  are 
working  in  the  fields.  Only  one  who  has  visited  the 
little  towns  in  the  Abruzzi  Mountains  or  the  Pomptine 
Marshes  can  appreciate  the  conditions  in  which  the  Ital- 
ian babies  have  to  live  without  such  care.  In  Rome  also 
Donna  Enrichetta  Chiaraviglio-Giolitti  told  me  of  the 
ideals  and  work  of  the  Italian  "Scuola  pratica  di 
assistenza  all'  Infanzia"  on  the  Via  S.  Gregorio  al 
Celio.  Founded  in  1911  the  school  has  maintained 
from  the  first  the  aims  of  diminishing  infant  mortality 
and  raising  health  standards  for  children  by  actual  care 
of  destitute  babies,  by  clinics  for  poor  mothers  and  by 
instruction  in  the  care  of  infants.  At  present  the  work 
of  the  Scuola  includes  a  laboratory,  a  school  for  in- 
struction in  the  care  of  children  and  in  domestic  econ- 
omy, an  asylum  for  children,  clinics  for  mothers  and 
children,  visiting  of  homes.  Two  special  features  of 
interest  are  the  courses  for  "little  Mothers,"  in  which 
simple  instruction  in  infant  hygiene  is  given  to  the  little 
girls  from  the  upper  classes  of  the  elementary  schools 
so  that  they  can  help  their  mothers  at  home  more  in- 
telligently and  the  courses  for  visiting  nurses  and  rural 
school-teachers.  When  I  talked  with  Donna  Chiara- 
viglio-Giolitti of  the  work  of  our  Children's  Bureau  in 
America,  she  said  to  me  with  tears  in  her  eyes:  "We 
know  all  that  you  have  done  in  America  for  the  chil- 
dren, and  as  yet  we  are  only  making  a  beginning  here, 
but  we  hope  to  do  much  more  as  time  goes  on.  We 
know  the  need." 


86  Italy  Old  and  New 

Working  along  the  same  lines  is  the  unique  School 
for  Visiting  Nurses  on  the  Via  Manin  in  Rome.  These 
organizations  I  have  mentioned  are  simply  illustrations 
of  the  sort  of  work  for  children  that  has  been  started  in 
Italy  and  a  proof  of  the  growing  field  here  opening  to 
women.  So  conscious  indeed  are  the  Italian  women 
themselves  of  the  importance  of  the  children  in  a  na- 
tion's life  that  in  the  pages  of  "II  Giornale  della 
Donna"  I  read  a  proposition  that  just  as  the  govern- 
ment demands  eighteen  months'  military  service  of 
men,  there  should  be  a  conscription  of  all  women  for 
education  in  care  of  children. 

Not  only  such  educational  work  has  developed  apace 
since  the  war,  but  there  has  been  a  great  increase  in 
the  numbers  of  women  demanding  the  best  possible 
education  and  flocking  to  the  Universities.  Italy  may 
well  be  proud  of  the  fact  that  her  Universities  have 
never  been  closed  to  women  and  that  through  all  her 
history,  she  has  thus  recognized  the  intellectual  equality 
of  women,  while  in  a  democracy  like  America,  we  have 
the  peculiar  anomaly  that  the  political  status  of  woman 
as  a  citizen  has  been  established  before  her  right  to  the 
same  educational  opportunities  as  men  has  been  demon- 
strated by  the  opening  to  her  of  all  higher  institutions 
of  learning.  In  Italy  in  elementary  education  there  are 
separate  schools  for  girls  and  boys  but  after  this  there 
are  mixed  schools  for  secondary  and  advanced  educa- 
tion. A  notable  exception  to  this  has  been  the  special 
college  to  prepare  women  for  teaching,  the  "Istituto 
Superiore  di  Magistero  Femminile."  For  this  a  prepa- 
ration of  ten  years  is  necessary  (four  in  the  elementary 
school,  three  in  the  complementare,  three  in  the  nor- 
male)  and  the  course  in  the  Magistero  demands  four 
years  more.     The  diploma  of  these  institutions  gives 


The  Aspirations  of  Italian  Women  87 

the  right  to  teach  in  the  scuole  elementari,  complement 
tarl  and  normali,  but  preference  even  here  is  given  to 
those  women  who  hold  the  laurea  (or  doctor's  degree) 
from  the  Universities  and  the  graduates  of  these 
Istituti  may  not  teach  in  the  ginnasi  or  the  licet  and  it 
is  recognized  that  the  work  of  the  Magistero  is  not  so 
advanced  as  that  of  the  Universities.  For  these  rea- 
sons a  number  of  the  women  with  whom  I  talked  think 
that  these  special  institutions  for  the  separate  educa- 
tion of  women  will  not  be  continued  much  longer  since 
women  more  and  more  prefer  to  attend  the  universities. 
Other  women  and  some  men  told  me  that  the  conserva- 
tism of  many  Italian  parents  will  still  prefer  to  have 
separate  education  for  their  adolescent  daughters. 

For  preparation  for  the  Universities  two  kinds  of 
training  are  possible  according  to  the  courses  to  be  pur- 
sued. To  enter  the  faculties  of  Law,  Philbsophy, 
Belles-Lettres  and  Medicine  in  the  Universities  a  can- 
didate must  attend  a  ginnasio  for  five  years,  a  liceo  for 
three,  and  have  an  education  which  includes  the  study 
of  Greek  and  Latin;  to  enter  the  Faculty  of  Sciences  in 
the  Universities  and  the  schools  of  engineering,  a  can- 
didate may  go  to  ginnasio  and  liceo  (with  the  classical 
training)  or  to  a  scuola  tecnica  for  three  years  and  an 
istituto  tecnico  for  four  years  and  omitting  the  Classics 
devote  more  time  to  modern  languages.  There  is  also 
a  well  organized  commercial  course  with  two  secon- 
dary schools  with  terms  of  three  and  four  years  and  an 
advanced  course  corresponding  to  university  work,  and 
there  are  industrial  schools  and  schools  of  agriculture. 

It  is  natural  to  find  more  women  in  the  Universities 
taking  the  literary  course  than  any  other,  but  some  are 
studying  engineering,  medicine,  and  law,  and  many  are 
working  in  chemistry,  especially  in  applied  chemistry. 


88  Italy  Old  and  New 

It  is  interesting  to  learn  that  in  the  University  of  Rome 
there  are  several  women  acting  as  assistants  in  physics 
and  chemistry  and  one  woman  professor  who  teaches 
philosophy  of  law.  Italian  women  taught  in  the  Uni- 
versities in  the  Rinascimento  and  continue  to  do  so  to- 
day. 

The  greatest  lack  in  the  education  of  Italian  women 
today  seems  to  be  in  physical  education.  Italian  men 
receive  physical  training  in  their  period  of  required 
military  service,  but  in  the  system  of  education  there  is 
virtually  no  account  taken  of  the  health  side.  The 
majority  of  Italian  schools  have  no  garden  even,  and 
there  are  no  study-halls,  only  recitation  rooms,  so  that 
space  for  exercise  is  lacking.  In  Rome  there  were  last 
year  three  trained  nurses  working  in  the  schools  and  the 
School  for  Visiting  Nurses  on  the  Via  Manin,  started 
during  the  war  by  the  American  Red  Cross,  is  planned 
to  promote  just  such  work.  Certain  industries  in  Milan 
and  Turin  have  gymnasiums  for  women  employees  and 
creches  for  children,  but  Rome  has  done  nothing  yet 
along  this  line,  in  which  a  tremendous  field  of  pioneer 
work  lies  open  to  Italian  women. 

Personally,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  along  these 
lines  of  work  for  children  and  in  education  lie  the  great- 
est satisfactions  at  present  for  the  aspirations  of  Ital- 
ian women.  The  suffrage  is  too  new  and  untried  an 
asset  to  make  the  political  world  as  yet  a  great  oppor- 
tunity. In  the  field  of  literature,  writing  is  so  poorly 
recompensed  and  the  reading  public  for  Italian  books 
so  limited,  that  rarely  can  any  Italian  man  or  woman 
make  a  living  by  the  pen.  In  the  so-called  learned  pro- 
fessions as  in  every  country  the  numbers  of  women  are 
still  bound  to  be  comparatively  small.  But  in  the  field 
of  the  care  of  children  and  the  education  of  the  young, 


The  Aspirations  of  Italian  Women    89 

Italian  women  have  a  great  tradition  and  a  great  future. 
America  has  out-distanced  Italy  in  child  hygiene  and 
physical  education  for  women.  Italy  anticipated  Amer- 
ica in  her  national  recognition  of  the  fact  that  "woman 
having  received  from  her  Creator  the  same  intellectual 
constitution  as  man,  has  the  same  right  as  man  to  in- 
tellectual culture  and  development."  It  is  beautifully 
fitting  that  in  the  pioneer  American  college  for  women, 
founded  by  Matthew  Vassar,  who  wrote  these  words,  a 
great  stained-glass  window  in  the  library  opposite  the 
entrance  door  should  depict  the  conferring  of  the  Doc- 
torate by  the  University  of  Padua  in  the  seventeenth 
century  upon  a  distinguished  young  Venetian  woman. 
As  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun  slant  through  this  noble 
memorial  to  the  Lady  Elena  Lucrezia  Cornaro- 
Piscopia,  may  the  gay,  young  American  girls  passing 
below  from  book-shelves  to  reading-tables  lift  their 
eyes  to  a  thought  of  the  beauty  of  learning  and  the 
honor  due  it,  and  may  they  across  seas  share  with  the 
women  of  Italy  one  of  their  immemorial  aspirations. 


IX 


fLA  BELLA  ZARA" 


ACROSS  the  Adriatic  is  a  tiny  city  so  historic  and 
fair  that  it  is  peculiarly  precious  to  the  Italian 
.  people  to  have  it  now  a  part  of  Italy.  "Zara 
nostra,"  "our  Zara,"  the  King  called  it  affectionately  in 
the  address  of  the  Crown  on  the  opening  of  Parliament 
June  the  twelfth,  1921,  "a  new  lighthouse  of  civiliza- 
tion and  of  culture  on  the  other  shore  of  the  Adriatic." 
Now,  once  more  Italian,  Zara  becomes  the  goal  of  a 
pilgrimage  for  crusaders  who  wish  to  see  where  lies 
the  heart  of  new  Italy. 

I  went  over  in  steamer  from  Ancona,  finding  that  port 
of  sailing  a  joy  in  itself  through  all  its  fine  architecture 
and  picturesque  ways :  the  Cathedral  crowning  hill  high 
over  curved  bay,  adorned  within  by  ten  Corinthian  col- 
umns from  the  old  Temple  of  Venus,  the  Palazzo  del 
Comune  with  the  fifteenth  century  Adam  and  Eve  sculp- 
tured naked  and  unabashed  on  the  fagade,  the  magnifi- 
cent Gothic  portal  of  the  hospital  church  of  San  Fran- 
cesco and  the  perfect  little  cortile  of  the  Prefettura,  the 
Loggia  dei  Mercanti  with  a  Gothic  fagade  by  the  same 
Giorgio  da  Sebenico  who  made  San  Francesco,  old  nar- 
row stairways,  palace  doors  framing  views  of  bay,  pic- 
turesque iron  lamps  hanging  at  the  top  of  steep,  winding 
streets,  the  great  arch  of  Trajan  on  the  north  pier. 
Then  there  was  the  sea,  a  glorious  day  of  it,  and  the 

90 


THE   CATHEDRAL   AT    ANCONA,    STRUCK    BY   AN   AUSTRIAN 
BOMB    THE    DAY    AFTER    WAR    WAS    DECLARED 


THE   GATE    AT   /..\\<.\ 


"La  Bella  Zara"  91 

unforgettable  beauty  of  the  approach  to  Zara.  For 
the  land  which  we  first  sighted  dissolved,  as  we  ap- 
proached, into  dozens  of  islands,  gray  rocks  with  a  low, 
sparse,  green  growth  over  them,  and  in  among  these 
we  coursed  towards  the  green  strip  of  shore  backed  by 
distant  mountains,  mountains  so  bare,  so  blue  and 
white,  that  they  seemed  at  first  a  cloud-mirage  rather 
than  Velebit  Alps.  Finally  there  was  the  tiny,  penin- 
sula city,  stretching  out  like  Sermione,  gem  of  all  al- 
most-island  places,  into  the  violet-blue  water.  Zara  is 
a  veritable  jewel  set  in  aquamarine  and  carved  in  tow- 
ers and  belfries,  and  one  needs  the  skill  of  a  maker  of 
cameos  or  a  painter  of  miniatures  to  picture  so  exqui- 
site a  possession.  From  my  window  at  the  top  of  the 
Hotel  Bristol,  as  I  looked  across  the  blue  canal  to  the 
long  ridge  of  the  island  Ugliano  and  its  high  Venetian 
fortress,  then  outlined  against  an  orange  sunset,  I  fell 
in  love  with  Zara. 

The  history  in  which  the  tiny  city  had  a  share  I  Here 
in  northern  Dalmatia  early  Liburnian  vikings  ruled  and 
ranged  the  sea  as  pirates,  fought  with  rival  Celts,  were 
involved  in  struggles  between  Greeks  and  Romans, 
were  conquered  with  the  other  Illyrians  by  the  Romans 
and  made  a  province,  shared  the  turmoil  of  the  civil 
war  between  Caesar  and  Pompey,  and  finally  had  to  be 
visited  in  two  campaigns  by  both  Agrippa  and  Octavi- 
anus  before  the  Pax  Augusta  settled  on  the  Adriatic's 
eastern  coast  and  the  first  public  libraries  in  Rome  were 
founded  from  Dalmation  spoils.  Brunelli's  scholarly 
history  of  Zara  records  what  part  Jader  or  Zara 
played  in  all  Dalmatia's  history  and  gives  among  the 
illustrations  a  picture  of  the  beautifully  carved  stone 
which  honors  Augustus  as  parent  of  the  Roman  colony. 
Zara  was  involved  too  in  the  reorganization  of  the  Illy- 


92  Italy  Old  and  New 

rian  province  made  by  Diocletian  under  the  menace  of 
barbarian  enemies,  but  we  do  not  know  how  much  she 
endured  of  later  devastations  from  Visigoths,  Huns, 
Ostrogoths  and  Slavs.  The  dark  curtain  lifts  from  her 
past  with  the  beginning  of  her  sacred  story  when  mar- 
tyr's blood  flowed  and  the  Archbishop  Donatus  and 
the  Gonfalone  Grisogonus  gave  her  new  and  individual 
history.  Then  for  her  loveliness  the  city  itself  became 
a  martyr  like  her  saints  and  after  a  pacific  occupation 
by  the  Venetians  was  seized  by  the  Hungarians,  was 
sacked  by  the  French,  was  tossed  back  and  forth  be- 
tween Venice  and  Hungary  and  finally  bestowed  on 
Austria. 

Out  of  so  turbulent  a  life  such  beauty  flowered.  The 
ages  have  left  their  marks  and  you  will  find  in  the 
Museum  of  San  Donato  even  Liburnian  tombstones, 
weapons  and  jewelry.  But  the  Roman  ruins  and  the 
Venetian  architecture  give  the  town  its  character. 
There  are  fragments  of  a  Roman  arch  built  into  the 
Porta  Marina  and  two  superb  Roman  columns  domi- 
nate tiny  Piazzas.  There  are  pieces  of  old  Roman  wall 
and  outside  the  town  on  the  way  to  the  little  Albanian 
village  of  Borgo  Erizzo  a  mile  distant  are  traces  of 
Trajan's  aqueduct.  But  the  most  impressive  Roman 
ruins  are  those  under  the  Museum  of  San  Donato,  the 
ninth  century  church  which  was  built  above  the  old 
Roman  forum.  The  form  of  the  building  is  unique, 
round,  of  two  stories,  each  with  six  pillars  and  two  an- 
cient columns,  but  the  first  floor  is  the  interesting  part, 
for  here,  when  excavations  were  made  down  to  the 
Forum  pavement,  the  buried  bases  of  the  columns  and 
the  lower  part  of  the  wall  were  uncovered  and  found 
to  be  composed  of  all  sorts  of  fragments  of  Roman 
buildings,  drums  of  fluted  columns  set  up  on  edge,  in- 


"La  Bella  Zara"  93 

scriptions  with  fine  floral  borders.  The  Museum  is 
rich  in  Roman  ivories  and  glass  and  in  Venetian  mate- 
rial of  every  sort,  all  arranged  with  beautiful  care  by 
the  thirty  years'  work  of  the  distinguished  Curator, 
Signor  Bersa. 

In  the  city  library,  Professor  Brunelli,  the  historian 
of  Zara,  displayed  to  me  some  of  its  treasures,  an  early 
diploma  for  a  Laureate  from  the  University  of  Padua, 
richly  illuminated,  an  old  French  history  of  Dalmatia 
illustrated  with  steel  engravings,  and  a  most  curious 
old  dictionary  written  by  hand  in  the  eighteenth  century 
with  illustrations  drawn  for  each  word.  It  was  an  in- 
teresting psychological  study  to  see  what  words  the 
writer  had  listed  and  what  were  his  pictorial  reactions 
to  his  words.  Some  of  his  pictures  which  were  uncon- 
ventional he  had  neatly  screened  with  little  blank 
squares  of  paper,  veils  that  could  be  lifted. 

The  churches  of  Zara  have  their  treasures  which 
have  been  sacredly  guarded.  At  San  Francesco  a  genial 
frate  in  brown  cowl,  while  he  displayed  their  ten  price- 
less missals,  told  me  the  story  of  a  senator  who  coming 
to  Zara  on  a  visit  and  seeing  the  poverty  of  the  Fran- 
cescans  jokingly  asked  them  why  they  did  not  sell  their 
books  for  American  dollars,  rebuild  their  church  and 
live  in  comfort.  The  frate  told  him  that  after  they 
had  saved  their  treasures  from  the  Austrians  during 
all  the  years  of  occupation,  they  would  starve  now  be- 
fore they  would  sell  them  and  the  senator  replied :  "You 
are  right  and  if  need  comes,  we  will  protect  them  for 
you  with  our  arms."  The  Francescans  showed  me  also 
their  touching  wooden  crucifix  of  the  ninth  century  and 
the  magnificent  carved  choir  stalls.  The  Cathedral  has 
nothing  more  beautiful  than  those  in  its  rich  carving, 
and  marble  altar.    At  San  Simeone  the  four  angels  were 


94  Italy  Old  and  New 

a  delight,  those  that  hear  the  Reliquary  of  the  Saint  at 
the  high  altar,  so  strangely  created,  two  of  marble,  two 
wrought  at  Venice  from  Turkish  cannon. 

We  kept  coming  on  Venetian  joys  as  we  walked 
about,  the  Clock  Tower,  the  rare  little  cortile  which 
had  been  plastered  up  in  a  modern  house  by  the  Aus- 
trians,  but  has  been  restored  by  the  Italians  to  all  the 
beauty  of  delicate  columns  and  rounded  arches.  Then 
there  was  the  market  to  see  in  the  Piazza  dell'  Erbe. 
Here  were  crowds  of  peasants,  Morlaks  and  Slavs, 
in  the  picturesque  native  costumes,  the  men  with  tiny 
round  scarlet  caps  perched  on  one  side  of  the  head, 
loose  jackets  with  the  fronts  embroidered  in  bright 
wool  and  adorned  with  silver  filigree  buttons,  'the 
women  with  white  head  kerchiefs  bordered  with  col- 
ored tassels,  embroidered  jackets  and  aprons,  belts  cov- 
ered with  silver  disks,  full  skirts,  heavy  woolen  stock- 
ings. Many  of  the  people  were  too  poor  for  such  good 
clothes  and  wore  cheap,  dark,  cotton  garments.  One 
touching  little  old  man  in  a  red  cap  who  had  a  live  hen 
under  each  arm,  with  a  few  grains  of  corn  in  his  hands 
under  their  beaks  to  keep  them  content  until  they  were 
sold,  asked  me  not  to  take  his  picture  because  his  shoes 
were  so  tattered.  And  I  had  thought  only  to  photo- 
graph his  affection  for  his  pets. 

On  one  side,  women  were  selling  wine  and  oil,  pour- 
ing them  out  of  great  cans  into  little  flasks.  Potatoes, 
corn,  tomatoes  and  greens  were  weighed.  Some  tables 
were  piled  high  with  fruit,  grapes,  figs,  pears,  plums; 
others  were  as  beautiful  with  flowers,  especially  single 
asters,  pink,  white,  lavender.  On  another  side  of  the 
Piazza  were  tables  of  shoes.  Over  there  was  a  butch- 
er's shop,  the  slaughtered  sheep  dripping  in  front. 
Women  walked  about,   carrying  country  produce   in 


MARKET-DAY    AT   ZARA 


"La  Bella  Zara"  95 

great  baskets  on  their  heads.  Others  were  stuffing  pur- 
chases into  gay  woolen  bags.  Patient  little  donkeys 
stood  waiting  for  burdens.  Good-natured  Italian 
policemen  were  arbitrating  disputes  between  sellers 
and  buyers.  Back  of  the  surging  crowd  around  the 
stalls,  at  one  corner  of  the  Piazza  towered  the  antique 
Corinthian  column,  a  sort  of  symbol  of  Rome's  protec- 
tion of  these  simple  contadini  whose  lives  in  the  barren 
limestone  region  of  Dalmatia  are  so  undeveloped  and 
so  hard. 

Little  Zara  was  fortunate  in  having  come  to  her  to 
reestablish  her  Italianita  such  a  man  of  parts  as  Vice- 
Admiral  Enrico  Millo,  the  Governor  of  Dalmatia  dur- 
ing the  Italian  occupation.  As  I  talked  with  his  Excel- 
lency, in  the  Governor's  Palace,  I  felt  that  in  this  dis- 
tinguished and  cultured  Admiral  the  best  traditions  of 
the  old  Roman  ideals  for  provincial  government  were 
perpetuated.  Every  aspect  of  public  health,  education, 
religious  freedom,  freedom  of  the  press,  and  develop- 
ment of  the  country  made  part  of  his  constructive  plan 
for  Italian  rule.  I  should  like  to  drink  his  health  again 
in  the  sparkling  colorless  Maraschino  liqueur,  made  at 
Zara,  which  he  named  for  me  so  humorously  "aqua 
americana." 

A  country  excursion  from  Zara  takes  you  north, 
walking  or  in  automobile,  to  the  tiny  hamlet  of  Nona, 
once  Roman  Aenona,  to  see  the  place  where  most  of 
the  Museum's  treasures  were  found  and  to  get  an  idea 
of  the  barrenness  of  the  land  as  it  lies,  stony,  unshaded 
under  the  mighty  mountains,  pasture  ground  for  stunted 
herds  of  sheep  and  goats,  shepherded  by  stunted  chil- 
dren. The  beauty  of  Zara  herself  is  more  poignant 
after  such  a  trip  among  the  poor  peasants  of  the  hinter- 
land.   With  her  mountains,  her  canal,  and  her  islands, 


96  Italy  Old  and  New 

she  lies  sea-girt,  adorned  with  the  beautiful  gifts  of 
ancient  Rome  and  of  Venice,  an  Italian  jewel,  no,  bet- 
ter in  the  King's  metaphor,  an  Italian  lighthouse,  flash- 
ing from  Dalmatia  to  Italy  alike  at  sunset,  through  the 
dark,  into  the  dawn. 


X 


EPIC  DAYS 

NEVER  had  I  expected  in  the  twentieth  century 
to  be  plunged  into  an  heroic  situation  and 
live  in  epic  days.  For  many  years  when  I 
became  over-tired  with  the  high  pressure  of  American 
life  and  worn  with  trying  to  understand  the  subtleties 
of  surrounding  persons  trained  by  conventional  society 
to  think  one  thing  in  their  heart  and  say  another  with 
their  lips,  I  had  taken  down  my  Homer  and  reading 
aloud  the  beautiful  hexameters  had  seemed  again  to 
hear 

"The  surge  and  thunder  of  the  Odyssey," 

had  seemed  to 

"See  the  stars,  and  feel  the  free 

Shrill  wind  beyond  the  close  of  heavy  flowers," 
and 

"Athwart  the  sunrise  of  our  western  day 

The  form  of  great  Achilles,  high  and  clear." 

And  the  sights  and  sounds  of  Homeric  times  had  in- 
variably made  that  heroic  life  in  its  close  contact  with 
nature,  its  simple  expression  of  feeling  and  its  ready 
action  seem  larger  and  grander.  So  it  was  with  such 
preparation  of  recurrent  mood  that  I  visited  Mycenae 
and  Fiume. 

Memorable  is  the  twenty-first  of  April  when  at  dusk 
a  party  of  Americans  came  riding  down  the  valley  to 

97 


98  Italy  Old  and  New 

Mycenae.  In  a  golden  sunset  lurid  under  dark  clouds, 
Mount  Arachnaeon's  gray  ridge  had  looked  high 
enough  for  the  flashing  of  the  signal  to  the  watchman 
on  the  top  of  Agamemnon's  palace  which  announced 
that  the  Trojan  war  was  over.  Now  in  the  twilight 
down  all  the  roads  into  the  valley  the  flocks  of  sheep 
were  tinkling  home  and  high  over  Mycenae's  rock  be- 
tween the  two  gray  peaks  of  Mount  Elias  and  Mount 
Szara  arose  a  full  white  moon.  Here  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountains  we  were  welcomed  at  the  "Hotel  la  belle 
Elene  de  Menelas,"  a  little  two-story,  rose-pink  house 
with  green  shutters  set  in  the  shade  of  feathery  pepper- 
trees,  and  here  our  host  Demetrius  assisted  by  his  two 
sons,  Agamemnon  and  Oreste,  and  a  charming  young 
daughter  with  two  long  brown  braids,  Helen  herself, 
served  us  as  delicious  a  dinner  as  though  Mycenae  were 
still  rich  in  gold.  The  unbelievable  event  of  sleeping 
there  was  made  more  Homeric  by  our  having  to  divide 
the  tiny  hotel  into  men's  quarters  and  women's  quar- 
ters, and  by  Helen  spreading  the  fair  purple  blankets 
and  coverlets  above  for  some  of  us  in  the  portico  and 
trying  to  assist  at  our  ablutions,  standing  solemnly  by 
basin,  holding  towel  in  hand. 

Then  in  the  early  morning  there  was  the  walk  up 
to  the  Treasury  of  Atreus  and  to  the  old  citadel  on  the 
hill.  Only  one  who  has  been  there  can  imagine  the 
sense  of  splendor  that  falls  as  one  enters  that  huge  bee- 
hive tomb  with  its  perfect  dome,  or  passes  through  the 
great  gate  where  the  two  rampant  lions  guard  the 
stronghold  of  the  king  of  men,  or  stands  in  the  sacred 
circle  of  the  royal  shaft-graves,  or  views  the  strength 
of  the  Cyclopean  city-walls,  or  peers  down  into  the  se- 
cret subterranean  well  which  gave  water  in  time  of 
siege,  or  passes  over  the  stone  threshold  into  the  palace 


Epic  Days  99 

to  the  central  hearth,  surrounded  by  columns,  where 
some  Clytemnestra  may  have  sat  plotting  the  death  of 
her  returning  Victor-Lord.  The  glamour  of  the  heroic 
civilization  hangs  over  those  stone  ruins  on  the  moun- 
tain's side  and  it  is  very  fitting  that  the  only  occupants 
of  ancient  Mycenae  today  are  the  eagles  who  have  built 
their  nests  on  top  of  the  ramparts  above  the  sheer 
gorge  between  the  mountain-peaks. 

Very  remote  though  real,  seemed  Mycenae,  the  city 
of  fourteen  hundred  years  before  Christ.  Very  near, 
but  unreal  seemed  the  city  of  Fiume  which  I  visited  be- 
fore the  occupation  of  D'Annunzio  was  over.  Or  shall 
I  say  that  Fiume  seemed  not  unreal,  but  incredible? 
As  I  look  back  at  my  five  October  days  there  and  at  the 
five  days  which  two  months  later  ended  the  epic  of  the 
Fiumani,  I  have  still  the  sense  of  amazement  that  in 
the  twentieth  century  there  could  have  been  events  so 
Homeric  in  character,  so  unrelated  to  realities, — an 
expedition  led  by  a  poet,  an  army  of  boys  worshipping 
their  Commandante,  a  tiny  city  defying  the  world. 
Though  the  facts  of  the  history  of  Fiume  are  an  old 
story  now,  feeling  still  runs  so  high  at  the  mention  of 
D'Annunzio's  name  and  the  issues  though  believed  dead 
by  those  far  away  are  still  so  lively  a  subject  of  contro- 
versy, that  I  will  not  concern  myself  with  them  here. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  tiny  town  at  the  head  of  the 
Adriatic  when  it  was  abandoned  by  the  Hungarians 
after  the  great  Italian  victory  at  Vittorio  Veneto,  be- 
lieved itself  in  danger  of  being  swallowed  up  by  neigh- 
bors, enemies  or  allies,  and  unable  to  maintain  its  cher- 
ished and  historic  corpus  separatum  and  its  Italianita. 
This  I  say  was  the  belief  of  the  city  and  the  tragic  calls 
which  it  sent  to  the  outer  world  caught  the  ear  not  of 
statesmen,  or  of  assembled  nations,  or  of  philanthro- 


100  Italy  Old  and  New 

pists,  but  of  a  poet  fed  on  that  strange  mixture  of 
classicism  and  romanticism  which  sometimes  produces 
action.  Just  what  was  in  the  complex,  subtle  mind  of 
the  Aviator-Commandante  when  he  adopted  the  cause 
of  Fiume,  no  other  can  declare,  but  the  call  of  the  holo- 
caust city  somehow  appealed  to  him  as  it  did  later  to 
the  writer  of  these  youthful  verses: 

TO   FIUME 

"Blockaded,  starved  and  bartered,  this  fair  Maid 
Had  still  maintained  her  'body  separate' 
And  stood  against  her  hill  inviolate 

Her  poignard  in  her  hand,  but  undismayed. 

"Now  chained  to  the  lone  rock,  the  unfailing  streams 
Denied  her  thirst,  her  plight  is  desperate. 
Yet  lift  your  eyes,  Andromeda,  and  wait! 
Lo !    In  the  sky  unconquered  Perseus  gleams." 

So  Perseus  flew  down  to  fair  maiden-in-distress,  the 
incredible  march  of  D'Annunzio  upon  Fiume  took 
place,  and  from  that  "night  of  Ronchi,"  September  the 
twelfth,  1919,  to  the  terrible  "five  days"  at  Christmas 
time  in  1920  which  ended  the  D'Annunzian  occupation, 
the  epic  days  of  Fiume  lasted. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  Epic  that,  in  spite  of  the 
blockade,  the  unpopularity  of  American  passports,  and 
the  presence  of  the  Bubonic  plague,  I  was  given  safe 
conduct  into  the  city  and  had  a  chance  to  see  its  small, 
but  beautiful  personality:  the  caerulean  bay,  girt  by 
high  hills,  the  city  climbing  the  rocks,  the  Frangipani 
castle  guarding  the  river  which  gave  name  to  town  and 
legend  "Indeficienter,"  "never  failing"  to  the  city's 
crest,  the  little  bridge  across  which  the  Italian  regulars 


Epic  Days  101 

in  Susak  and  D'Annunzio's  legionaries  in  Fiume 
touched  hands,  the  little  harbor  divided  by  a  mole  into 
Porto  Baross  and  the  inner  bay,  in  short,  the  diminutive 
loveliness  of  all  that  fed  so  high  a  flame.  And  it  was 
while  I  was  in  Fiume,  talking  day  after  day  to  boys  of 
seventeen  and  eighteen  in  D'Annunzio's  army,  that  I 
sensed  that  their  amazing  deeds  could  be  fittingly  rec- 
orded only  in  Homeric  strains.  With  apologies  to  cer- 
tain distinguished  translators,  let  me  try  to  begin  in 
English  an  Homeric  version  of  an  Italian  epyllion.1 

Sing,  I  pray,  ye  muses  who  inhabit  Olympian  dwell- 
ings, sing  of  the  march  of  the  Hero,  the  little  man  of 
the  winged  words,  and  the  winged  service,  who  mar- 
shalled a  band  of  youths  to  seize  a  beleaguered  city. 
Youngsters  they,  but  valiant,  many  were  sons  of  the 
mighty,  yea,  and  perhaps  better  the  sons  than  the  weary 
and  home-staying  fathers.  Dark  was  the  night  and 
quiet  when  the  silver-tongued  orator  of  the  rocky 
Abruzzi  bethought  himself  of  impetuous  valor.  Sud- 
den he  leapt  in  his  armor  from  the  earth  where  he  stood 
to  his  chariot;  terribly  flashed  the  words  from  the 
poet's  lips  as  he  darted.  "Italy  and  Life,"  he  cried, 
and  at  the  sound  joy  came  upon  all  the  Young-hearted. 
And  as  many  as  the  birds  that  flee  from  the  coming  of 
winter  and  sudden  rain,  or  as  many  as  the  tribes  of 
thronging  bees  that  issue  from  some  hollow  rock,  ever 
in  fresh  procession  and  fly  clustering  among  the  flowers 
of  spring,  or  as  many  as  the  tearless  phantoms  that  flit 
about  the  shore  of  the  river  of  forgetfulness,  even  so 
many  were  the  stalwart  young  heroes  who  mounted  on 
their  chariots  or  marched  in  serried  ranks  after  the 

*1  have  used  freely  the  translations  of  the  "Iliad"  by  Lang,  Leaf 
and  Myers,  and  of  the  "Odyssey"  by  Butcher  and  Lang. 


102  Italy  Old  and  New 

flying  captain,  and  as  they  rushed  onward,  there  was 
heard  a  strange  sound  of  singing, — "Eia,  eia,  alala  !  To 
the  holocaust  city!" 

So  might  the  march  to  Fiume  be  recorded.  And 
there  were  other  later  events  as  "irregular"  that,  set 
down  in  cold  newspaper  reports,  would  be  dubbed  acts 
of  brigandage  or  highway  robbery,  or  sentimental 
twaddle,  but  which  slip  strangely  into  Homeric  phrase- 
ology. Let  us  try  the  seizure  of  the  ship,  the  taking  of 
the  horses,  the  conversation  at  the  Susak  bridge. 

Now  so  long  as  the  legions  of  the  Fiumani  still  had 
corn  and  red  wine,  they  refrained  them  from  seeking 
for  vessels  laden  with  food  upon  the  high  seas,  for  they 
were  fain  of  life.  But  when  the  corn  was  now  all  spent, 
and  hunger  gnawed  at  the  belly,  then  secretly  in  the 
dark  they  loosed  the  hawsers  of  a  decked  ship  and 
climbed  on  board  themselves.  Then  laid  they  hands  on 
the  tackling,  and  they  raised  the  mast  of  pine  tree  and 
set  it  in  the  hole  of  the  cross  plank,  and  made  it  fast 
with  forestays  and  hauled  up  the  white  sails  with 
twisted  ropes  of  oxhide  and  gray-eyed  Athene  sent 
them  a  favorable  gale,  a  fresh  North  wind  singing  over 
the  wine-dark  sea.  The  wind  filled  the  belly  of  the 
sail,  and  the  dark  wave  seethed  loudly  round  the  stem 
of  the  running  ship  and  she  fleeted  over  the  wave  ac- 
complishing her  path.  And  right  soon  before  the  sun 
arose  and  left  the  lovely  mere,  they  came  in  sight  of 
another  vessel  and  quickly  they  spied  her  cargo,  many 
kine  that  she  bear,  fair  kine  of  shambling  gait  and 
broad  of  brow.  And  the  Fiumani  quietly  hove  their 
curved  ship  to  beside  the  vessel  which  carried  the  cattle 
and  leaping  on  board  more  quickly  than  nimble  thought 


Epic  Days  103 

darts  from  mind  to  mind,  they  began  slaying  on  this 
side  and  on  that,  until  the  sailors  begged  them  to  take 
the  precious  cattle,  sparing  so  their  lives  for  to  each 
man  his  own  is  precious.  And  all  the  company  con- 
sented thereto,  and  quietly  in  the  cover  of  the  darkness 
both  the  seafaring  ships  sped  back  into  the  harbor  for 
well  did  their  pilots  guide  them.  Then  they  stayed 
their  well-builded  ships  in  the  hollow  harbor,  and  the 
company  went  forth  from  out  the  ship  and  deftly  got 
ready  supper.  Forthwith  they  drove  off  the  best  of 
the  kine,  and  the  Fiumani  gathered  in  throngs  on  the 
seashore,  rejoicing  greatly,  for  they  knew  that  soon 
they  would  satisfy  their  gnawing  hunger. 

Now  there  was  need  also  of  horses  for  the  soldiers 
in  the  little  city,  for  all  their  horses  had  sickened  and 
died  and  since  the  city  lay  on  a  hillside,  there  was  need 
of  beasts  of  burden  to  carry  the  guns  up  the  hill,  and 
to  bear  their  scanty  provisions.  So  to  the  Comman- 
dante  spake  a  youth  of  the  loud  war-cry:  "Comman- 
dante,  my  heart  and  manful  spirit  urge  me  to  enter  a 
town  of  the  foemen  hard  by,  even  of  the  enemy;  but 
and  if  some  other  man  will  follow  with  me,  more  com- 
fort and  more  courage  will  there  be."  Then  him  again 
answered  the  volatile,  brilliant  commander:  "Ah,  ye 
sons  of  Fiume,  how  shall  I  speak  my  thanks  to  you ! 
Volentes,  O  willing  ones,  ye  bear  in  your  hearts  our 
motto  'the  next  thing  always.'  One  for  all,  all  for  one, 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  go  forth  for  the  night  is  waning. 
Near  is  the  dawn,  and  the  stars  have  gone  onward.  If 
the  spirit  is  for  us,  who  can  be  against  us?" 

So  spake  he,  and  up  started  two  stalwart  young 
heroes  and  when  they  had  prayed  to  San  Vito,  they 
went  forth  on  their  way,  like  two  lions  through  the 
dark  night,  to  find  the  steeds  that  were  needed.    And 


104  Italy  Old  and  New 

quickly  they  came  to  the  city  of  the  enemy.  Now  they 
were  slumbering,  foredone  with  toil,  but  near  each  man 
were  his  steeds.  And  the  Fiumani  spied  them  from 
afar  and  spake  one  to  the  other:  "Here  are  our  men 
and  here  are  the  horses.  Come  now,  put  forth  thy 
great  strength.  Do  thou  slay  the  men,  and  of  the 
horses  will  I  take  heed." 

And  like  as  a  lion  cometh  on  flock  without  a  he  ds- 
man,  on  goats  or  sheep,  and  leaps  upon  them  with  evil 
will,  so  set  one  Fiuman  on  the  enemy  and  slew  the 
guardians  of  the  horses.  Meanwhile  his  hardy  com- 
panion loosed  the  whole-hooved  horses  and  bound  them 
together  with  thongs  and  drove  them  out  of  the  press, 
smiting  them  with  a  green  branch  since  he  had  no  shin- 
ing whip  to  smite  them.  And  when  they  stole  secretly 
out  of  the  crowded  press  of  the  enemy,  swiftly  they 
sprang  upon  the  steeds  and  sped  to  the  city  of  life. 
And  in  the  palace  of  the  Commandante  the  sentinel  at 
the  door  listened  and  said  to  himself  softly:  "Shall  I 
be  wrong  or  speak  sooth?  for  my  heart  bids  me  speak. 
The  sound  of  swift-footed  horses  strikes  upon  mine 
ears.  Would  to  god  our  two  brave  soldiers  may  even 
instantly  be  driving  the  whole-hooved  horses  from 
among  the  enemy."  Not  yet  was  his  whole  word 
spoken  when  they  came  themselves  and  leaped  down  to 
earth,  and  gladly  the  others  welcomed  them  with  hand- 
clasping,  and  with  honeyed  words.  But  they  lifting 
their  eyes  hoped  only  to  hear  the  praise  of  the  Com- 
mandante. 

Now  Italian  regular  soldier  and  legionary  Fiuman 
met  in  the  mid-space  of  the  bridge  that  crossed  the 
river  between  Fiume  and  Susak,  and  there  where  the 
strange  barrier  of  a  barbed  wire  kept  them  asunder, 
the  twain  were  come  nigh  in  guard  duty  to  each  other. 


THE    FIUMANI    ON    DUTY    AT    D'ANNUNZIO'S    PALACE 


THE    FIUME-SUSAK    BRIDGE 


Epic  Days  105 

To  the  Italian  Regular  first  spake  the  Fiuman  of  the 
loud  war-cry:  "Who  art  thou  noble  sir,  of  mortal  men? 
For  never  have  I  beheld  thee  on  guard  duty  ere  this,  yet 
now  hast  thou  far  outstripped  all  men  in  thy  hardihood, 
seeing  that  thou  approachest  the  poignard  of  an 
Ardito." 

Then  the  glorious  son  of  the  regular  army  made  an- 
swer to  him:  "Great-hearted  Fiuman,  why  enquirest 
thou  of  my  generation?  Even  as  are  the  generations 
of  leaves  such  are  those  likewise  of  heroes.  You  and 
I  and  all  our  dear  comrades  tomorrow  may  be  scat- 
tered on  the  earth  in  the  battle.  For  a  bitter  order  has 
come  and  brother  is  fighting  with  brother.  Know,  O 
Fiuman,  that  I  like  you  am  Italian.  I  too  have  sworn 
an  oath,  to  my  King  and  my  country.  And  you  I  hear 
have  sworn  to  make  Fiume  Italian, — have  pledged 
your  word  in  blood  to  your  great-hearted  Commander." 

So  said  he  and  straightway  answered  the  youthful 
Fiuman :  "Surely  thou  art  to  me  a  guest-friend  of  old 
time,  for  our  fathers  both  have  served  the  same  king, 
the  same  country.  Yet,  O  my  brother-in-arms,  how  can 
we  shun  each  other's  spears  in  the  conflict?  For  you 
stand  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  bridge  and  I  on  the  other 
side  with  Fiume.  And  here  we  shall  remain."  Just 
then  there  sounded  a  terrible  breaking  of  timber,  a 
crashing  explosion,  thudding  things  hitting  the  water, 
booming  from  ships  in  the  harbor.  Presently  all  was 
quiet,  but  there  was  no  bridge  over  the  river. 

So  I  might  go  on  with  the  amazing  story,  but  I  hope 
I  have  written  enough  to  show  how  easily  the  episodes 
of  the  life  in  Fiume  drop  into  epic  narrative.  What- 
ever your  opinion  of  the  abstract  "Fiume  question," 
whatever  your  Anglo-Saxon  condemnation  of  the  social 


106  Italy  Old  and  New 

standards  of  D'Annunzio,  I  would  have  challenged  any 
man  or  woman  with  red  blood  to  talk  with  the  young 
legionaries  of  Fiume  and  not  believe  that  they,  the  rank 
and  file,  were  of  the  stuff  of  the  heroic  age.  Their 
flaming  worship  of  their  leader,  their  passionate  be- 
lief that  they  were  fighting  for  the  liberty  of  a  little 
Italian  city,  their  disregard  of  their  impuissance  and 
their  sublime  faith  in  the  truth  of  D'Annunzio's  motto: 

"If  the  spirit  is  for  us,  who  can  be  against  us?"  led 
many  to  fight  to  the  death.  Why,  anyone  who  had  been 
to  Fiume  and  seen  the  legionaries'  small  numbers,  their 
slight  equipment,  their  isolation,  their  poverty,  knew  at 
once  that  they  could  not  resist  any  regular  army  for  a 
day,  but  to  the  last  those  boys  believed  in  their  cause 
and  in  their  power. 

Think  of  the  foolhardy  things  they  did!  Now, 
hearing  a  rumor  that  little  Zara  on  the  Dalmatian  coast 
might  lose  her  Italian  identity  in  the  final  treaties  ma- 
noeuvred by  the  Allies,  they  manned  a  boat,  dashed  out 
of  the  harbor  and  arrived  before  Zara  to  assist  the 
Governor  of  Dalmatia,  were  gravely  and  courteously 
received  by  his  Excellency,  given  barracks  in  Zara,  and 
the  freedom  of  the  city  as  honored  guests,  and  kept 
there  until  the  end  of  D'Annunzio's  command.  Then 
when  in  the  night  the  little  company  first  tried  to  tunnel 
its  way  out,  then  seized  a  boat  in  the  harbor  and  were 
about  to  start  northward,  they  were  of  course  easily 
made  prisoners. 

Or  think  of  the  little  bands  that  escaped  the  block- 
ade of  Fiume  and  seized  the  tiny,  jewel-like  islands  of 
Veglia  and  Arbe,  summoned  by  appeals  from  the  Ital- 
ians there.  And  when  the  end  of  the  life  of  the  legions 
in  Fiume  came,  and  the  regular  army  ordered  them  tc 
withdraw  from  Veglia  and  Arbe,  few  though  they  were" 


Epic  Days  107 

and  mighty  the  warships  before  them,  they  refused  to 
stir  until  a  command  in  D'Annunzio's  own  hand  was 
brought  to  them  and  their  lives  were  mercifully  spared 
by  the  indulgence  of  the  desired  letter  from  their  Hero. 
Then  at  the  beginning  of  their  last  fatal  "five  days," 
think,  how  on  the  outskirts  of  the  town  the  Fiumani  put 
up  placards  of  appeal  to  the  Italian  regulars,  believing 
those  would  disarm  the  cannon : 

"Brothers!  If  you  wish  to  avoid  the  great  misfor- 
tune, do  not  pass  this  limit. 

"If  your  leaders  blind  you,  may  the  God  of  Italy 
give  you  light." 

Such  simple  faith  in  the  possibility  of  superhuman 
deeds,  such  spirit,  such  dash,  such  courage,  and  such 
dying  are  the  qualities  of  epic  heroes,  and  seem  to  be- 
long in  an  age  when  the  world  was  younger.  Even  as 
I  write  of  them  in  this  after-war  time  of  disillusion  and 
self-seeking  normality,  I  catch  my  breath  and  think  that 
those  young  intellectuals  who  so  ardently  dared  all  for 
the  magic  word  "Liberty"  had  their  great  day.  In  the 
height  of  their  adventures,  a  young  Florentine  lawyer, 
just  married,  said  to  me  nonchalantly  after  speculating 
on  the  industrial  and  financial  crisis  of  his  country: 
"Oh  well!  If  there  is  a  revolution  in  Italy,  my  wife 
and  I  will  go  to  live  under  D'Annunzio's  constitution  in 
Fiume !"  Such  a  stronghold  of  the  spirit  did  the  little 
city  seem  to  many  devotees.  There  will  be,  however, 
no  revolution  in  Italy,  as  all  who  live  there  are  aware. 
D'Annunzio  is  no  longer  in  Fiume.  And  the  epic  days 
of  the  world  are  perhaps  over. 


XI 


SPRING    IN    SICILY   AND   THE    CARRYING   OFF    OF    THE 

MAID 

ISLANDS  have  always  had  for  me  a  magic  charm. 
As  I  have  cruised  among  them  along  the  coast  of 
Maine  and  the  shore  of  Dalmatia  and  in  the  Ion- 
ian Sea,  often  I  have  wished  to  stop  at  some  beckoning 
sea-girt  place,  sure  of  latent  adventures  there.  Islands 
seem  more  individual  than  great  continents,  more  full 
of  personality  in  their  isolation,  more  certain  to  have 
had  the  past  that  makes  romance.  Think  of  the  islands 
that  have  been  the  settings  for  great  stories :  Cythera 
whither  came  Venus  born  of  the  foam  and  blown  by 
the  winds;  Delos,  the  wandering,  tethered  by  Zeus's 
chains  to  become  a  stable  birthplace  for  another  great 
deity;  Scyros  where  Achilles,  in  the  garb  of  a  girl  was 
hidden  by  his  war-dreading  mother  among  the  daugh- 
ters of  the  king  until  Odysseus  discovered  him  and  car- 
ried him  off  to  Troy;  Lemnos  with  tragic  Philoctetes 
left  alone  and  sick,  to  eat  his  heart  and  talk  to  rocks 
and  woods;  all  the  enchanted  Homeric  isles, — Circe's 
JExa.  with  the  singing  of  the  goddess  and  the  grunting 
of  her  victims,  Calypso's  fair  close,  the  Phaeacian 
Scheria  where  exquisite  Nausicaa  gave  the  uncouth, 
shipwrecked  Odysseus  royal  hospitality,  rocky  Ithaca 
where  faithful  Penelope  spun  and  unravelled  and 
waited  for  her  lord,  and  then  other  isles  of  Greece — 
Lesbos,  where  burning  Sappho  lived  and  sung,  or 
Salamis  over  against  which  the  king  sat  on  the  rocky 
brow  counting  by  thousands  his  ships  soon  to  be  de- 

108 


Spring  in  Sicily  109 

stroyed.  Scores  of  these  famous  islands  press  their 
claim  on  memory,  and  above  all  rise  the  Islands  of  the 
Blessed  with  their  beautiful  mystic  Elysium.  The  sto- 
ries throw  a  glamour  over  geography  and  make  the 
word  'island'  a  magician's  wand  to  summon  delight. 

Some  such  spell  I  felt  cast  over  me  when  I  took  boat 
for  Sicily  in  the  spring  and  my  mood  of  eager  antici- 
pation was  crystallized  by  lines  from  a  great  poem  I 
had  been  reading,  an  ode  in  which  Pindar  writing  for  a 
Syracusan  who  had  won  a  chariot-race  paid  high  tribute 
to  Sicily  and  the  goddess  of  the  spring: 

"Sow  then  some  seed  of  splendid  words  in  honour 
of  this  isle,  which  Zeus,  the  lord  of  Olympus,  gave  unto 
Persephone,  and  bowed  his  head  toward  her  in  sign 
that  this  teeming  Sicily  he  would  exalt  to  be  the  best 
land  in  the  fruitful  earth,  with  gorgeous  crown  of  cita- 
dels. And  the  son  of  Kronos  gave  unto  her  a  people 
that  wooeth  mailed  war,  a  people  of  the  horse  and  of 
the  spear,  and  knowing  well  the  touch  of  Olympia's 
golden  olive-leaves"  (Nem.  1,  Myers'  translation). 

As  the  boat  from  Naples  neared  Palermo  in  the  early 
morning  and  I  saw  in  the  light  of  dawn  the  shell  of 
gold,  that  rounded  valley  girt  by  mountains,  yellow  with 
fruit,  in  which  Palermo  lies,  I  could  see  why  Pindar 
called  Sicily  "best  land  in  the  fruitful  earth."  Over  the 
Concha  d'Oro  towered  too  one  of  her  great  citadels, 
for  the  huge  rock  at  the  right  was  the  height  that  Ham- 
ilcar  Barca  held  and  Pyrrhus  stormed,  and  that  hour  as 
I  saw  Monte  Pellegrino  all  rose,  gray  and  green  in  the 
golden  haze  of  early  sunshine,  I  determined  that  before 
I  left  Sicily,  I  too  would  scale  the  height  of  Ercte. 

I  felt  like  Pippa  with  her  one  day  as  I  faced  only 
three  weeks  in  Sicily.  I  wished  at  the  moment  that  my 
luggage  was  a  library  instead  of  a  portmanteau  and 


110  Italy  Old  and  New 

that  I  was  going  to  live  there  instead  of  to  travel. 
Books  on  Sicily  all  seemed  so  bulky  and  heavy  that  I 
could  not  carry  those  I  had  looked  over;  E.  A.  Free- 
man's scholarly  histories,  Pitre's  "Feste  Patronali  in 
Sicilia,"  Paton's  "Picturesque  Sicily,"  Louise  Caico's 
"Sicilian  Ways  and  Days,"  Crawford's  "Rulers  of  the 
South,"  Cecilia  Waern's  "Mediaeval  Sicily,"  H.  Fest- 
ing  Jones's  "Diversions  in  Sicily,"  and  the  beautifully 
illustrated  "Sicily"  of  Alberto  Pisa  and  Spencer  C. 
Musson.  I  was  carrying  with  me  a  few  indispensables, 
the  remarkable  1919  Gitida  of  the  Touring  Club  Itali- 
ano,  Hare's  "Sicily,"  Trevelyan's  "Garibaldi  and  the 
Thousand,"  Thucydides,  Pindar,  Theocritus  and  Ver- 
gil. I  thought  that  those  would  serve  to  lead  my  feet, 
refresh  my  memory,  and  give  me  joy. 

Memory  needs  special  aid  in  Sicily.  So  many  civil- 
izations have  claimed  the  island  and  left  their  stamp. 
What  an  historical  pageant  the  procession  of  occupants 
would  make  !  Legendary  Cyclopes  and  Laestrigonians 
first,  then  those  mysterious  early  peoples,  the  Sicanians, 
the  Elymi,  and  the  Sicelians,  bearing  the  long  bronze 
lances  now  exhibited  in  the  Syracuse  Museum,  magnifi- 
cent Greek  tyrants,  crowned  with  the  laurels  of  victo- 
ries in  the  great  athletic  contests  of  Greece,  swarthy 
Phoenician  traders,  Roman  empire-builders,  hordes  of 
barbarian  Goths,  then  Byzantine  captains,  Christian 
missionaries,  Saracen  conquerors,  Norman  kings  and 
Germans,  rulers  from  Provence  and  from  Aragon,  Eng- 
lish generals  and  last  Garibaldi  and  the  Thousand, 
marching  by  in  their  red  shirts.  No  wonder  that  after 
such  a  history,  Sicily  is  bewildering  in  the  multitudinous 
and  overwhelming  impressions  she  makes.  You  will 
see  the  purest  of  Greek  Doric  columns  from  the  fifth 
century  before  Christ  and  the  most  gorgeous  of  brilliant 


Spring  in  Sicily  111 

mosaic  chapels  from  the  twelfth  century  after  Christ. 
You  will  pass  from  Museum  rooms  filled  with  classic 
sculpture  to  street-scenes  of  gay  carts  decorated  with 
Saracen  stories.  You  may  look  at  the  beautiful  little 
coins  adorned  with  four-horse  chariots  which  were 
struck  by  Greek  tyrants  and  at  the  mammoth  porphyry 
sarcophagi  where  Norman  kings  were  entombed.  At 
noon  you  may  stand  alone  on  the  top  seats  of  the  Greek 
theater  at  Segesta  looking  off  to  the  sea,  and  in  the 
evening  you  may  listen  to  Grand  Opera  in  the  Teatro 
Vittorio  Emmanuele  of  modern  Palermo.  From  the 
heights  of  Epipolae  you  can  see  how  the  Greek  fort 
Euryalus  protected  the  great  ancient  city  of  Syracuse 
and  from  the  Gibilrossa  Pass  you  can  look  down  the 
road  by  which  the  Thousand  descended  to  capture 
Palermo.  And  in  the  quiet  of  the  siesta  hour  you  will 
be  reading  the  Homeric  Hymn  to  Demeter  or  the  chant 
of  the  Garibaldini. 

Palermo,  the  first  city  I  visited,  had  all  this  bewil- 
derment and  fascination.  I  stayed  a  week  and  hardly 
began  to  know  the  city  and  the  treasures  near.  I  will 
confess  at  once  that  I  selected  the  Hotel  des  Palmes 
because  it  was  near  the  Museum,  wishing  to  get  daily  a 
little  time  with  the  sculpture  from  Selinunte,  but  I  found 
myself  very  comfortable  with  a  window  opening  to 
green  palm-trees,  delicious  food  and  a  most  courteous 
Italian  proprietor.  I  made  the  mistake  of  following  my 
usual  habit  of  walking  about  the  city  first  to  get  orien- 
tated, but  Palermo  is  too  large  and  too  much  a  business 
city.  The  Via  Maqueda  and  the  Corso  Vittorio  Em- 
manuele did  not  please  me,  nor  did  the  octagonal 
piazza  where  they  cross,  the  Quattro  Canti,  with  its 
heavy  baroque  facades  of  Seasons  and  Holy  Maidens 
interspersed  among  homely  Spanish  kings.     I   found 


112  Italy  Old  and  New 

myself  looking  in  shop  windows  for  bargains  in  Sicilian 
drawn  work,  counting  the  number  of  banks  I  passed  and 
studying  Palermitan  millinery.  So  I  gave  up  walking, 
hailed  a  small  carrozza  whose  horse  had  a  peculiarly 
high  feather  waving  from  the  top  of  his  head  and  whose 
driver  had  the  richest  of  Sicilian  coloring  and  directed 
that  I  should  be  taken  to  the  Cathedral,  the  Palazzo 
Reale  and  San  Giovanni  degli  Eremiti. 

The  Cathedral  is  as  strangely  composite  as  Palermo 
itself  for  little  is  left  on  the  outside  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury foundation  and  century  after  century  of  additions 
have  made  a  curious  medley  with  an  excrescence  of  a 
dome  topping  it  all,  but  I  liked  its  brown  color,  its 
length,  its  delicate  towers  and  its  entrance  portal.  I 
understood  better  the  simplicity  of  the  crypt,  with  its 
cool  granite  columns,  unadorned  walls  and  early  sarco- 
phagi, one  that  of  Walter  of  the  Mill,  the  English  Arch- 
bishop who  founded  the  church  for  William  the  Good. 
But  the  tombs  of  the  Kings  are  by  far  the  most  impres- 
sive part  of  the  Cathedral,  those  great  porphyry  sarco- 
phagi where  lie  five  great  monarchs  and  two  queens. 
Such  magnificent  sepulchres  ought  to  insure  repose  yet 
in  1781  the  sarcophagi  were  opened  and  you  may  see 
now  in  the  treasure  room  of  the  Cathedral  the  precious 
objects  taken  from  them, — the  jewelled  crown  of  Con- 
stance of  Aragon,  a  bit  of  the  rich  robe  of  Henry  VI, 
and  a  magnificent  Spanish  pallium.  Verily  after  death 
divinity  does  not  hedge  a  king. 

From  the  tomb  of  Roger  II  I  went  to  two  of  the 
beautiful  creations  of  his  reign,  the  Cappella  Palatina 
in  the  Palazzo  Reale  and  San  Giovanni  degli  Eremiti. 
No  room  ever  seemed  to  me  more  gorgeous  than  the 
Cappella  Palatina,  but  in  its  Arab-Norman  style,  it  is 
Oriental  and  remote  from  me,  not  so  much  in  the  lines 


Spring  in  Sicily  113 

of  nave  and  aisles  and  pointed  arches  and  cupola,  but 
in  the  blaze  of  color  of  the  golden  mosaics  and  their 
rich  splendor.  It  is  not  a  room  in  which  I  could  pray. 
It  made  me  excited  and  eager  to  study  the  mosaic  pic- 
tures that  caught  my  fancy, — Jacob's  ladder,  Adam  and 
Eve,  Noah's  Ark,  Abraham  wrestling  with  the  angel, 
all  the  stories  of  my  childhood  wrought  on  gold.  A 
room  as  perfect  and  more  sympathetic  to  me  is  the 
Mausoleum  of  Galla  Placidia  at  Ravenna,  where  golden 
light  filters  through  alabaster  windows  on  mosaics  of 
a  dark  blue  ground  instead  of  gold. 

These  older  mosaic  pictures  on  blue  like  those  of 
S.  Prassede  in  Rome  appeal  to  me  more,  yet,  when  I 
think  of  St.  Mark's  in  Venice  and  its  subdued  golden 
harmony,  I  am  not  sure.  The  larger  interior  seems 
better  suited  to  such  magnificence  or  perhaps  one's 
mood  determines  one's  taste.  In  Palermo,  I  know  I 
found  more  satisfaction  in  Roger's  other  beautiful 
structure,  San  Giovanni  degli  Eremiti.  It  may  have 
been  because  I  wanted  air  and  sunlight  and  was  so 
content  to  look  at  two  rose-red  domes  under  pointed 
arches  of  a  little  cloister  where  a  trailing  rose  flung  its 
saffron  blossoms  over  a  stone  well.  A  black  cat  rolled 
happily  in  the  sunshine  though  she  was  tied  by  a  cruel 
rope.  The  Custode's  grave,  thirteen-year-old  son  ex- 
plained that  the  gatta  if  allowed  to  roam  at  will,  ate 
lizards,  and  this  food  made  her  very  ill  so  she  could 
not  have  her  freedom.  Alas!  When  I  returned  to 
Palermo  three  months  later,  la  gatta  had  broken  loose, 
eaten  her  prey  and  died,  and  two  black  and  white  off- 
spring, who  had  inherited  their  mother's  tastes,  were 
languishing  resignedly  at  the  ends  of  their  chains  in 
the  exquisite  fourteenth  century  cloisters  while  the  liz- 
ards darted  safely  by.     Even  in  a  garden  as  beautiful 


114  Italy  Old  and  New 

as  Eden  life  may  have  its  cares  and  the  Custode  had 
his  rheumatism  and  the  Son  his  English  exercise  to 
write  for  school  and  the  cats  their  cords,  but  my  sym- 
pathy for  them  all  could  not  darken  my  joy  there  in 
golden  fruit  of  lemon  and  orange  trees,  peach-trees  in 
pink  blossom,  trailing  white  roses  and  ground  covered 
with  freesia,  mignonette  and  violets. 

After  such  a  morning  I  chose  to  loaf  and  invite  my 
soul  through  a  long  siesta  time,  then  later  went  to  the 
Piazza  Marina  and  walked  out  under  the  Porta  Felice, 
the  great  sixteenth  century  gate,  to  the  sea,  a  pleasant 
place  in  which  to  dream  if  Palermo  gave  one  time.  I 
started  to  dream  about  how  the  high  car  of  S.  Rosalia 
must  have  looked  as  on  her  festa  it  passed  through  the 
Porta  Felice  left  open  at  the  top  for  it,  but  my  feet  were 
aquiver  to  be  off  and  soon  I  was  investigating  famous 
inns  in  this  old  quarter  and  finding  with  delight  the 
beautiful  Renaissance  portal  of  Santa  Maria  della 
Catena,  the  tiny  church  named  from  the  chain  which 
once,  it  is  said,  was  fastened  here  to  close  the  mouth  of 
the  harbor.  Tea  in  the  English  tea-room  in  the  Piazza 
Marina  gave  refreshment  with  a  look  over  the  Giardino 
Garibaldi  and  then  later  a  chance  of  seeing  the  treas- 
ures of  the  gift-shop, — ancient  Byzantine  ikons,  Assist 
embroidery,  book-racks  made  of  parts  of  painted  carts, 
conversation-beads  of  flame-colored  amber. 

I  have  no  intention  of  chronicling  stupidly  all  my 
itineraries  or  all  my  teas,  but  perhaps  a  few  of  my 
first  experiences  will  speed  the  introduction  of  others 
to  Palermo.  Another  morning  I  went  over  to  the 
Piazza  Bellini  to  see  La  Martorana  and  San  Cataldo. 
Incidentally  on  the  way  I  was  lured  into  the  church  of 
Santa  Catarina  on  the  Piazza  Pretoria  to  see  Jonah. 
Santa  Catarina  is  so  magnificently  baroque  that  one 


Spring  in  Sicily  115 

gasps  for  breath  in  the  oppression  of  such  heavy  gor- 
geousness,  takes  a  hurried  look  at  Antonello  Gagini's 
statue  of  the  saint,  and  then  finds  on  the  first  pilaster  at 
the  right  the  joyful  Jonah  story,  the  capsized  ship,  the 
floundering  prophet,  the  gaping  whale,  all  wrought  in 
high  relief  and  brilliant  color.  Such  use  of  baroque 
bordering  on  the  humorous  treatment  of  the  sacred 
seems  to  me  the  most  pleasing,  for  beauty  I  have  not 
yet  seen  in  that  style  of  decoration  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  a  delightful  young  architect  tried  to  educate  me  to 
it  during  one  whole  half  day  in  southern  Greece.  I 
remember  as  we  walked  up  the  flowery  hills  towards 
Messene's  old  stronghold  how  eloquently  he  maintained 
that  the  baroque  style  which  had  made  most  of  the  great 
palaces  in  Rome  and  the  villas  near  must  be  judged  by 
its  best  and  not  its  worst  and  in  the  light  of  the  truth 
that  it  had  saved  for  us  the  Renaissance. 

I  admit  my  narrowness  of  architectural  sympathy  and 
confess  that  La  Martorana's  beauty  was  sadly  marred 
for  me  by  the  baroque  additions  and  the  gaudy  little 
chapel  opening  out  of  the  apse,  with  its  priceless  lapis 
lazuli  altar.  One  has  to  hunt  in  La  Martorana  for  the 
original  lines  of  the  building  and  the  few  old  mosaics 
remaining,  but  one  mosaic  picture  in  the  vestibule  is 
worth  a  morning's  stay, — the  severe  spiritual  Christ  in 
his  simple  robes,  crowning  Roger  the  gorgeously  ap- 
parelled little  earthly  monarch.  There  is  a  delightful 
mosaic  of  the  nativity  also,  two  happy  animals  peering 
into  the  manger,  the  Child  ready  for  his  bath,  but  with 
golden  aura  about  his  head,  the  saint  pouring  a  tenta- 
tive hand  into  tub  to  test  heat  of  water.  How  naive 
and  blithe  are  some  of  these  early  Christian  pictures  1 
The  most  beautiful  architectural  part  of  the  church 
now  is  the  delicate  campanile  and  I  stood  looking  at 


116  Italy  Old  and  New 

it  long  before  entering  S.  Cataldo.  This  little  Norman 
church  has  been  restored  to  all  its  original  beauty  of 
line.  Three  rose  domes,  pointed  windows,  an  Arabic 
inscription  for  a  frieze,  rectangular  plan,  it  shows  with- 
out; within  three  apses,  six  ancient  columns,  the  old 
mosaic  floor  giving  the  only  color  and  under  the  cool 
severity  of  unadorned  walls,  the  lovely  old  marble 
altar  carved  with  the  symbols  of  the  evangels  about 
the  Lamb. 

It  is  wiser  to  see  La  Martorana,  S.  Cataldo  and  the 
Palatine  Chapel  before  going  out  to  the  perfection  of 
Monreale.  Tram  9  from  the  Piazza  Bologni  takes 
you  up  and  up  for  an  hour  or  more,  past  hedges  of 
gray-green  cactus  and  scarlet  geraniums  over  the  Conca 
d'Oro  to  the  lovely  height  where  Monreale's  cathedral 
flowers.  One  needs  a  day  to  begin  to  enjoy  this  most 
perfect  Norman  monument  in  all  Sicily,  and  after  that 
day,  one  will  return.  What  is  the  charm?  Partly  the 
natural  beauty  of  the  setting  on  the  hill  over  the  golden 
plain  and  the  sea;  partly  the  proportions  of  the  struc- 
ture outside  and  in, — the  basilica  with  three  apses,  the 
Byzantine  sanctuary,  the  great  rectangular  cloister; 
partly  the  joy  of  the  mosaics  which  paint  on  the  walls  all 
the  story  of  the  life  of  Christ,  and  the  sculptured  capi- 
tals of  the  columns  from  some  of  which  pagan  Ceres 
and  Proserpina  look  out;  partly  the  varied  fascination 
of  the  cloister's  carvings  and  the  delight  of  hunting  for 
such  personal  touches  as  the  capital  whereon  William  II 
the  Founder  offers  the  Duomo  to  the  Madonna,  or  that 
other  where  a  Roman  marble-cutter  inscribed  his  own 
name.  Then  you  may  climb  about  the  roof  for  one  view 
after  another  of  the  adorable  island,  and  you  may  sit 
in  the  cloister  listening  to  the  water  falling  from  the 


Spring  in  Sicily  117 

exquisite  column  of  the  fountain,  and  all  day  you  drink 
deep  of  beauty  until  you  are  fairly  weary  of  your  senses. 

Then  it  is  time  to  go  down  the  hill  and  relax  in  cafe 
or  tea-room  and  here  I  have  a  merry  warning:  remem- 
ber if  you  are  making  engagements  that  there  are  three 
cafes  called  Caflisch.  I  shall  never  forget  how  a  dis- 
tinguished English  lady  and  I  in  an  attempt  to  have 
tea  together  "at  Caflisch's"  chased  each  other  from  one 
place  to  another  like  kittens  in  a  circle  until  I  finally  sat 
down  at  one  on  the  Via  Maqueda,  ordered  cakes  and 
cups  and  let  her  catch  up  with  me. 

You  will  wish  to  go  out  to  Cefalu  soon  after  seeing 
Monreale  for  the  sake  of  comparisons  and  new  impres- 
sions of  mosaic  decoration  from  the  great  cathedral 
there.  We  had  a  great  disappointment  on  entering  the 
Duomo,  for  the  apse  was  entirely  hidden  from  view  by 
a  network  of  wooden  scaffolding  that  had  been  erected 
for  the  restoration  of  the  famous  mosaics.  My  spirits 
sagged  until  I  conceived  the  idea  of  this  being  a  great 
opportunity  for  studying  the  technique  of  the  mosaics 
at  close  range  and  was  able  to  convince  a  reluctant  priest 
that  I  was  steady  of  head  and  foot.  Then  guided  by 
a  little  lame  Custode  with  large  gold  rings  in  his  ears, 
I  ascended  shaky  ladders  and  walked  around  six  un- 
steady stories  of  scaffolding.  It  was  absorbingly  inter- 
esting to  see  the  details  of  these  Greek-Byzantine  mo- 
saics and  in  spite  of  my  nearness  to  them,  I  was  greatly 
impressed  by  their  simplicity  and  dignity,  the  remote 
face  of  the  ascetic  Christ,  the  gentle  Madonna  in 
mauve,  the  angels  of  the  six  folded  wings,  the  glorious 
company  of  the  Apostles.  Here  I  seemed  to  sense  real 
religious  feeling,  and  the  effect  on  me  was  like  that  of 
the  Russian  church  music. 

Later  with  a  small-boy  guide  I  climbed  to  the  top  of 


118  Italy  Old  and  New 

the  gray  promontory  on  which  ancient  Cephaloedium 
stood  and  saw  on  the  crest  of  the  hill  the  most  remark- 
able prehistoric  ruin, — temple  or  tomb  or  private 
house,  Phoenician,  Sikel,  or  Pelasgic,  who  knows?  But 
there  it  stands,  high,  broken  wall  gray  on  the  green  hill, 
its  lower  part  of  magnificent  polygonal  blocks  and  in 
them  a  huge  entrance  door  with  sculptured  portal,  lead- 
ing into  vestibule  from  which  two  other  similar  doors 
open.  Here  is  that  familiar  motif  of  drama  which 
might  be  called  "the  mystery  of  the  door,"  for  the  mag- 
nificent door  in  polygonal  wall  stands  unexplained,  com- 
pelling study  and  conjecture. 

I  have  left  what  meant  most  to  me  in  Palermo  until 
the  last,  yet  there  was  nothing  to  which  I  went  so  often 
as  the  Museum,  for  in  the  peculiarly  beautiful  setting 
of  the  old  monastery  with  its  two  courtyards  green  with 
palms,  ivy,  and  papyrus  under  the  fountain  are  as- 
sembled great  treasures.  I  did  not  have  time  to  get  any 
idea  of  the  Saracenic  art  from  the  Arabian  Room,  nor 
much  feeling  for  Sicilian  painting  from  the  pinacoteca 
although  I  went  upstairs  twice  to  see  the  famous  Flem- 
ish triptych  with  its  exquisite  miniature  fineness.  I  often 
walked  about  the  well-arranged  rooms  of  the  Greek 
vases  and  the  room  of  the  bronzes  where  are  the  little 
Pompeian  group  of  Hercules  and  the  stag  and  the 
amazingly  lifelike  ram  which  once  lay  over  the  great 
entrance  door  of  Castello  Maniace  in  Syracuse.  The 
mosaic  room  too  demanded  a  classical  glance  at  the 
great  floor  picture  of  Orpheus  charming  the  animals, 
but  the  room  where  I  sat  for  many  a  half  hour  was 
the  room  of  the  sculpture  from  Selinunte.  It  was  a 
disappointment  that  I  could  not  get  to  the  site  of  Seli- 
nunte itself  to  see  the  chaotic  ruins  from  which  these 
great  reliefs  came,  yet  I  knew  the  best  of  Selinunte  to- 


Spring  in  Sicily  119 

day  was  here.  The  fascination  of  the  hall  is  the  chance 
to  study  the  development  of  decorative  relief  sculpture 
from  such  primitive  work  as  the  grotesque  Hercules 
killing  the  Gorgon  and  stiff,  timid  Europa  riding  her 
bull  to  the  four  fifth  century  metopes  where  rectangular 
spaces  are  filled  with  such  varied  and  beautiful  compo- 
sitions. As  I  sat  before  them,  I  became  absorbed  in 
studying  details  of  technique,  the  red  paint  still  visible 
on  Athena's  robe  in  the  Medusa  metope,  the  attempts 
at  foreshortening  in  the  primitive  quadriga  group,  and 
the  varied  arrangement  of  two  figures  in  the  later  me- 
topes and  the  way  in  which  the  heads,  hands  and  feet  of 
the  female  figures  are  made  of  a  finely  worked,  white 
marble,  very  different  from  the  porous  stone  of  the  rest 
of  the  reliefs.  The  art  of  Greek  sculpture  seems  to  be 
developing  before  one's  eyes  in  that  room;  and  leads 
one's  thoughts  to  the  next  stage,  the  final  triumph  of 
Attic  art  on  the  Parthenon. 

I  did  not  leave  Palermo  without  fulfilling  the  vow 
I  made  on  my  approach, — to  ascend  Monte  Pellegrino. 
Hamilcar  Barca  was  in  my  mind,  the  great  Carthaginian 
commander  of  the  first  Punic  war  with  Rome,  fought  so 
largely  on  Sicilian  soil,  and  I  kept  thinking  of  Sir  Roger 
Casement's  sonnet  to  the  "Eagle  of  Eryx," 

"Thou  that  didst  mark  from  Hercte's  spacious  hill 
The  Roman  spears,  like  mist,  uprise  each  morn, 
Yet  held,  with  Hesper's  shining  point  of  scorn, 
Thy  sword  unsheathed  above  Panormus  still." 

But  when  I  climbed  old  Hercte  I  found  that  the  moun- 
tain brow  is  given  over  to  the  memory  of  a  Christian 
saint  instead  of  a  Punic  conqueror.  From  the  sea, 
ships  entering  the  harbor  see  the  colossal  statue  of 


120  Italy  Old  and  New 

Santa  Rosalia  on  the  northeast  side  of  the  mountain, 
but  the  sacred  cave  where  this  niece  of  the  Norman 
King,  William  Second,  was  metamorphosed  from  noble 
maid  to  hermit  lies  on  the  back  side  of  Monte  Pelle- 
grino  and  the  ascent  is  long  for  the  pilgrims,  especially 
on  rainy  days  like  the  one  on  which  I  walked  up.  Yet 
I  saw  a  very  heavy,  lame  woman  painfully  walking  back 
down  the  slippery  road  and  a  young  father  and  mother 
laboriously  pulling  a  carriage  containing  a  tiny  crying 
child.  So  efficacious  is  believed  to  be  a  visit  to  the 
shrine.  The  cave  where  Santa  Rosalia  lived  and  died 
has  been  transformed  into  a  little  chapel  and  here  ser- 
vice is  held  three  times  a  day,  the  priest  told  me,  near 
the  beautiful  recumbent  marble  statue  of  the  young 
saint,  clad  in  stiff  golden  robe  and  crowned  with  gold. 
A  little  Museum  full  of  magnificent  gold  and  silver 
votive  offerings  testifies  to  the  devotion  of  pilgrims  who 
believe  they  have  been  healed  here. 

I  kept  thinking  of  the  miracles  of  religion  and  of  war 
as  I  walked  down  the  mountain,  and  almost  equally 
strange  seemed  the  freshness  of  the  path  worn  by  pil- 
grim feet,  and  the  boldness  of  the  venture  by  which 
Pyrrhus  once  stormed  this  bare  gray  limestone  ridge. 
Then  I  forgot  all  history,  as  stopping  in  a  rocky  pas- 
ture, overgrown  with  sparse  low  cedar  and  golden  ge- 
nestra,  I  saw  the  silver-gray,  misty-green  view  of  the 
harbor  encircled  by  Cape  Zaffarano,  and  at  the  edge  of 
the  Conca  d'Oro  the  low  red  city  of  Palermo  on  the 
shining  bay. 

Even  a  pilgrim  may  have  tea  and  I  found  the  Villa 
Igiea  very  conveniently  near  the  base  of  the  mountain 
and  in  its  flowery  garden  above  the  ships  riding  at 
anchor  I  planned  how  on  my  next  visit  I  should  go  to 
Selinunte,  Segesta  and  Solunto.     Segesta  only  have  I 


Spring  in  Sicily  121 

yet  achieved  and  that  shall  be  the  end  of  my  Sicilian 
story. 

I  had  hardly  found  spring  in  Sicily  in  my  city  life  in 
Palermo  so  the  long  day  on  the  train  from  Palermo  to 
Taormina  was  joyful  in  giving  me  a  sight  of  the  coun- 
try. It  was  a  rainy  day,  of  mists  and  clouds  and  leaden 
sea,  but  through  its  grayness  the  gold  fruit  of  the  lemon 
groves  shone  all  along  the  northern  and  the  eastern 
shores.  The  north  of  the  island  seemed  very  fertile,  an 
irrigated  country  of  vegetable  gardens,  olive  orchards, 
peach  trees  all  abloom  in  deep  rose,  high  hedges  of 
prickly  pear  or  pink  geraniums.  At  my  left  was  the 
sea,  on  my  right  green  wooded  heights,  row  after  row, 
cloud-wrapped,  and  in  the  valleys  between  them  the  dry, 
pebbly  beds  of  torrents.  I  read  history  as  the  train 
stopped  at  one  station  after  another.  Here  at  Termini- 
Imerese  are  the  hot  springs  which  a  nymph  showed 
Hercules  for  his  refreshment  on  his  trip  with  Geryon's 
cattle,  but  I  saw  from  the  train  no  bagni,  their  modern 
successors.  Neither  could  I  see  any  trace  of  Himera, 
home  of  the  poet  Stesichorus,  and  site  of  the  terrible 
revenge  that  Hannibal,  son  of  Gisco,  took  here  for  the 
death  of  his  grandfather, — the  destruction  of  the  town 
and  the  sacrifice  of  three  thousand  citizens  to  his  grand- 
father's shade.  Soon  I  saw  again  picturesque  Cefalu, 
a  warm,  brown  city  stretching  out  on  a  point  into  the 
sea,  the  golden  brown  cathedral  with  its  two  towers 
rising  high  above  the  houses,  and  on  the  great  towering 
mountain  above,  the  proud  prehistoric  ruin.  Later  the 
Lipari  islands  rose,  dim-blue  silhouettes  from  a  silver 
ocean,  only  a  remote  line  for  the  home  of  Aeolus,  god 
of  the  winds,  but  looming  nearer  "close  to  the  Sicanian 
coast  and  Aeolian  Lipare,  a  lofty  island,  with  smoking 
rocks,"  where  is  heard  a  mighty  anvil  chorus  on  the 


122  Italy  Old  and  New 

forges  of  the  Cyclopes,  "the  home  of  Vulcan  and  the 
land  by  name  Yulcania"  (Aen.  8,  415-22).  Then  all 
the  afternoon  there  were  tunnels,  tunnels,  tunnels  as  we 
ran  under  the  mountains  that  descend  close  to  the  sea. 
Perhaps  the  intermittent  view  of  hills  and  water  seemed 
more  picturesque  in  their  sudden  beauty  after  the  dark. 

Milazzo's  long  slender  promontory  brought  to  mind 
together  Agrippa  who  won  the  battle  of  Naulochus  off 
the  coast  and  Garibaldi's  advance.  Finally  there  was 
one  long  tunnel  and  we  came  out  upon  Messina,  lying 
low  in  her  curved  sickle  line  by  the  sea  between  two 
ridges  of  hills,  all  her  houses  looking  very  new,  from 
the  rebuilding  after  the  earthquake.  As  the  train 
rounded  one  ridge  and  ran  out  into  the  town,  I  saw 
the  shore  of  Calabria  across  and  realized  that  I  was 
facing  Scylla  and  Charybdis  tamely  and  safely  from  the 
land. 

Here  at  Messina  one  changes  to  the  train  for  the 
south  and  presently  we  were  passing  through  more  fra- 
grant lemon-groves,  and  by  pebbly  torrent  beds,  and 
along  green  hills,  and  always  on  the  left  was  beating 
the  sea.  It  was  dark  when  we  reached  Taormina  and 
I  saw  nothing  as  we  drove  up,  up,  up  to  the  city  on  the 
rock,  but  I  was  out  early  the  next  morning  and  had  an 
hour  alone  in  the  most  beautiful  ruin  I  had  ever  seen. 
I  say  this  in  retrospect,  for  I  was  bitterly  disappointed 
in  the  theater  when  I  entered  it  in  the  orchestra :  it 
seemed  so  small,  insignificant,  colorless.  I  felt  the 
mistake  of  my  position  and  went  at  once  up  the  stairs 
at  the  left  to  the  very  top  and  there  had  a  view  that 
held  me  for  an  hour.  I  realized  as  I  lingered  that  the 
ruin  is  probably  more  beautiful  than  the  original 
theater,  for  the  back  of  the  stage,  broken  as  it  now  is, 
frames  a  view  with  stiff  cypresses  in  the  foreground, 


Spring  in  Sicily  123 

then  far  below  the  turquoise  sea,  and  the  white  surf,  and 
beyond  in  the  distance  Mount  Etna's  snow-capped  peak. 
All  this  magic  setting  intensifies  the  color  of  the  ruin, 
the  dull  red  of  old  bricks,  the  gray  of  the  Corinthian 
columns  of  the  scena.  My  eyes  wandered  off  to  the 
craggy  hills  over  the  town,  Mola  with  its  Castello, 
Monte  Venere,  Monte  Ziretto,  and  then  I  turned  to 
the  north  and  had  another  sea  view,  the  coast  to  Cape 
Alessio  and  its  fort  and  across  the  water  Calabria's 
long  point.  All  my  precious  hour  I  heard  the  surf 
below  and  against  its  music  now  and  then  the  song  of  a 
blackbird. 

When  other  forestieri  began  to  arrive,  I  descended  to 
explore  every  part  of  the  theater,  trying  to  trace  Hellen- 
istic structure  and  Roman  additions.  Back  of  the  scena 
part  of  the  Greek  wall  remains,  massive  marble  blocks, 
and  some  marble  columns  are  embedded  in  the  later 
Roman  brick-work.  Details  to  notice  are  the  niches 
for  statues  back  of  the  gray  columns  of  the  scena,  the 
reservoirs  for  water  under  the  stage,  the  entrance  doors 
to  stage  and  to  orchestra,  the  excavated  seats  cut  in  the 
native  rock,  the  large  room  at  the  left  of  the  stage  as 
one  enters  the  orchestra.  There  is  a  tiny  one-room 
Museum  above  the  theater  but  there  is  not  much  of  in- 
terest, architectural  fragments  found  in  the  theater,  a 
headless  torso  of  an  ephebus,  Hellenistic  work,  a  Ro- 
man sarcophagus  with  a  Bacchic  scene.  I  enjoyed  more 
the  genial  Custode  who  while  he  sold  me  a  coin  of 
Tauromenium  told  me  that  the  reason  why  the  stemma 
of  the  city  is  the  minotaur  is  because  the  first  colonists 
thought  that  the  three  hills  back  of  the  city  had  the 
shape  of  a  bull-man. 

All  the  rest  of  the  day  I  roamed  about  the  little  town, 
looking  for  its  Roman  and  its  mediaeval  treasures. 


121  Italy  Old  and  New 

The  one  central  street,  the  Corso  Umberto,  is  not  long 
from  the  Porta  Messina  to  the  Torre  Mediaevale  so 
one  can  be  leisurely.  I  hunted  up  the  Palazzo  Corvaia 
with  the  picturesque  entrance  gateway,  court-yard  and 
staircase  with  the  delicious  fourteenth  century  reliefs 
of  the  Creation,  the  fig-tree,  Eve  spinning  and  Adam 
delving,  the  Odeon,  a  little  Roman  theater,  half  exca- 
vated, the  Duomo  with  one  beauty,  its  entrance  portal, 
the  diverting  fountain  where  various  beasties  spout 
water,  and  atop  sits  the  Minotaur  crudely  restored  as 
a  maiden  queen  or  saint,  crowned,  San  Domenico's 
lovely  cloister  where  the  convent  bell  now  summons 
not  monks  but  hotel  guests  to  dinner,  the  Badia 
Yecchia,  a  ruined  Gothic  tower  with  exquisitely  deli- 
cate pointed  windows  traced  against  the  sky,  the  chiesa 
del  Carmine  with  its  nice  Latin  couplet  over  the  door: 

Ingredimur  veluti  portam  nos  virgo  sacelli 
Te  porta  caelos  ingrediamur  ita. 
"As  we  enter  the  door  of  your  shrine,  maiden, 
so  by  you  as  a  door  may  we  enter  heaven." 

I  do  not  wonder  that  Taormina  is  a  haunt  of  artists 
for  besides  the  beauties  of  site  and  theater,  there  are 
many  picturesque  street  scenes:  a  group  of  old  men 
sitting  in  the  Piazza  weaving  chair  bottoms;  a  woman 
in  a  green  skirt,  lavender  apron,  pink  waist  and  yellow 
kerchief,  leading  her  goat;  a  gray  stone  archway  with 
a  mass  of  orange-honeysuckle  above  and  under  it  an 
old  wrinkled  crone  with  a  red  kerchief  over  her  head. 
But  much  as  my  eye  was  caught  by  all  this,  I  had  the 
feeling  that  there  were  too  many  picture  postcards  in 
little  shop  windows  to  make  these  effects  unsophisti- 
cated. Taormina  is  too  full  of  English-speaking  artists 
and  tourists  to  let  it  keep  a  real  simplicity  that  would 


Spring  in  Sicily  125 

befit  its  rock.  Yet  its  charm  and  its  accessibility  make 
exploitation  almost  unavoidable  and  I  with  the  other 
Anglo-Saxons  long  to  return  for  the  blooming  of  the 
almond  blossoms  and  for  the  flush  of  dawn  on  Etna's 
white  face. 

Theocritus  and  Ovid,  the  Odyssey  and  the  Aeneid 
are  the  proper  companions  for  the  train  between  Taor- 
mina  and  Syracuse  for  they  best  tell  the  stories  of  the 
Cyclops  which  haunt  this  shore.  The  tale  of  the  un- 
couth Polyphemus  in  love  with  the  delicate  nymph, 
Galatea,  you  will  find  in  two  charming  idyls  (Theoc.  6 
and  11)  and  then  as  you  near  Acireale  you  may  read  in 
Ovid  (Met.  13,  750-897)  how  here  Acis,  the  young 
lover  of  Galatea  was  transformed  into  a  stream  that 
he  might  escape  the  jealous  vengeance  of  his  giant  rival. 
Near  Aci  Castello  you  will  see  off  shore  the  Rocks  of 
the  Cyclops,  those  great  missiles  which  the  blinded 
Polyphemus  hurled  after  Ulysses  when  he  escaped  him 
so  craftily,  and  in  the  ninth  book  of  the  Odyssey  and 
the  third  of  the  Aeneid  you  may  read  the  story  of 
Polyphemus  in  anger.  Then  as  you  near  the  end  of  the 
four  hours'  train-ride,  you  will  forget  the  Cyclops' 
Idyls  and  Epics  for  Pindar's  greeting  to  Siracusa. 

"O  resting-place  of  Alpheos,  Ortygia,  scion  of  famous  Syra- 
cuse, thou  that  art  a  couch  of  Artemis  and  a  sister  of  Delos, 
from  thee  goeth  forth  a  song  of  sweet  words  "    (Nem.  1,  1  sq.). 

Taormina  is  superlatively  charming,  Siracusa  is  su- 
perlatively splendid.  Yet  something  of  the  exquisite 
haunts  too  this  historic  harbor  where  so  much  of  an- 
cient history  was  made,  and  it  is  well  to  begin  a  stay 
in  Ortygia,  that  fourth  of  the  ancient  city  which  is  now 
modern  Syracuse,  with  a  visit  to  the  spring  of  Arethusa 


126  Italy  Old  and  New 

and  a  thought  o\  the  story  culled  from  Vergil,  Ovid  and 
Shelley, — how  amorous  river-god  Alpheus  pursued  shy 
nymph  Arethusa  through  Greece  even  under  the  sea  to 
this  island  and  when  she  at  last  was  transformed  into 
a  spring,  here  their  waters  mingled  in  happiness.  The 
acusans  with  the  Italian  sense  of  beauty  have  made 
the  fountain  of  Arethusa,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  city, 
a  lovely  thing.  The  great,  clear,  bubbling  pool  lies 
deep  below  the  city  streets  surrounded  with  high  ivy- 
covered  walls.  Feathery  papyrus  grows  thick  in  half 
oi  it  through  which  white  ducks  swim  in  and  out,  and 
through  the  clear  water  pearly-gray  fish  dart.  It  is 
the  head  of  Arethusa  surrounded  by  dolphins  that 
graces  many  of  the  beautiful  coins  of  Syracuse,  those 
artistic  monuments,  miniature  but  magnificent,  of  her 
splendor. 

To  study  the  coins  of  Syracuse  is  to  study  her  his- 
tory, for  one  great  Greek  tyrant  after  another  struck 
pieces  of  money  to  commemorate  his  power  and  his 
victories.  Here  is  the  silver  Damareteion  struck  by 
Gelo  after  his  defeat  of  the  Carthaginians  in  480.  For 
the  victory  of  Hiero  I  over  the  Etruscans  at  Cumae 
we  should  see  the  famous  inscribed  votive  helmet  in  the 
British  Museum.  This  Hiero  is  one  of  the  monarchs 
who  proved  that  peace  has  her  victories  no  less  re- 
nowned than  war  by  gathering  to  his  court  the  great 
literary  geniuses  of  his  time,  Aeschylus,  Pindar,  Simon- 
ides,  Bacchylides.  The  defeat  of  the  Athenians  in  413 
B.  C.  is  signalized  by  another  great  silver  medallion 
with  a  suit  of  Athenian  armor  under  the  victorious 
quadriga.  Timoleon's  altruistic  restoration  of  the  free 
life  of  the  city  343  is  symbolized  in  a  coin  bearing  the 
head  of  Zeus  the  Liberator.  Pyrrhus'  victories  over 
Sicily  278-5  B.  C.  produced  a  gold  coin  with  the  head 


Spring  in  Sicily  127 

of  Athena  on  the  obverse  and  a  victory  on  the  reverse. 
We  know  the  face  of  Theocritus'  patron,  Hiero  II, 
from  his  coin-portrait;  we  know  too  the  likeness  of  his 
wife  Philistis,  whose  name  is  carved  on  the  theater. 
Another  coin  gives  us  the  profile  of  Hieronymus  who 
by  allying  himself  with  the  Carthaginians,  brought  on 
the  Romans'  siege  of  Syracuse  and  Marcellus'  victory. 
Then  the  glorious  days  of  the  city  were  over  and  it  was 
the  prey  of  the  vandalism  of  a  Verres  and  of  the  con- 
quests of  Byzantines,  Arabs  and  Normans. 

All  this  tremendous  history  is  recorded  in  great  mon- 
uments and  one  needs  days  to  visit  Ortygia,  Neapolis, 
Epipolae  and  Achradina.  I  began  with  Ortygia  and 
after  visiting  Arethusa  hunted  next  the  ruins  of  the 
so-called  "Temple  of  Diana,"  more  probably  of  a 
Temple  of  Apollo  as  a  dedicatory  inscription  carved  on 
the  stylobate  shows.  When  I  wished  to  enter  the  iron 
gate  which  barred  my  study  here,  a  small  girl  of  about 
ten  informed  me  that  she  was  the  Custode  and  as  proof 
for  my  incredulity  produced  a  huge  key  and  maintained 
a  pompous  air  of  oversight  during  my  investigations. 
Yet  she  allowed  two  playmates  to  set  out  tiny  doll's 
furniture  and  play  house-keeping  on  the  marble  steps 
while  I  looked  at  the  two  mighty  Doric  columns  re- 
maining from  this  most  archaic  of  Doric  temples  on  the 
island. 

Next  I  sought  the  temple  of  Athena.  Never  was 
Doric  more  strangely  metamorphosed  than  here  into 
this  baroque  Duomo.  Zosimus,  the  bishop  of  the  sev- 
enth century  after  Christ  was  the  one  who  embedded  the 
magnificent  old  columns  in  the  church  walls  where  his 
own  resplendent  portrait  now  hangs.  Athena  has  given 
way  to  a  silver  Santa  Lucia  who  does  not  scorn  wearing 
a  beautiful  Greek  cameo  upon  her  bosom,  and  to  the 


128  Italy  Old  and  New 

lowliest  of  girlish  madonnas  by  Gagini  who  stands 
timidly  under  the  tremendous  Doric  columns  near  the 
font,  which  is  an  ancient  vase  of  marble.  The  Duomo 
in  spite  oi  all  changes  retains  something  of  the  magnif- 
icence of  the  temple  which  Cicero  celebrated,  and  is  a 
hall  where  one  feels  the  worship  of  centuries. 

The  Museum  of  Syracuse  is  a  delight  both  in  its 
wealth  of  treasures  and  in  the  excellent  arrangement  of 
them  made  by  the  care  of  Professor  Orsi,  the  Director. 
It  is  due  to  his  scholarship  that  here  may  be  studied  the 
prehellenic  antiquities  which  reveal  four  periods  of  the 
hitherto  little  known  Sicilian  civilization.  Here  too 
are  well-arranged  collections  of  pottery,  terra-cottas, 
and  coins,  architectural  fragments  from  the  old  temple 
of  Athena  and  part  of  a  great  red  altar  that  stood 
before  it.  Then  there  are  magnificent  terra-cotta  sarco- 
phagi from  Gela,  of  the  sixth  and  fifth  centuries,  with 
the  inside  beautifully  decorated  in  relief  and  color,  one 
with  exquisite  little  Ionic  columns  in  the  four  corners. 
The  halls  of  sculpture  aroused  that  wild  desire  for 
possession  which  comes  over  me  when  I  see  the  perfec- 
tion of  small  works  of  ancient  art.  Intellectually  I  dis- 
approve severely  of  private  ownership  of  any  great 
works  of  art;  aesthetically  I  covet  beautiful  little 
statues,  and  here  the  small  ones  were  marvels:  a  little 
niche  relief  of  a  seated  Cybele,  two  small  reliefs  of 
horsemen,  and  above  all,  a  marble  statuette  of  Her- 
cules with  even  the  exquisite  head  perfect.  This  ap- 
pealed to  me  more  than  did  the  magnificent  bust  of 
Zeus  or  Poseidon.  Of  course,  the  most  famous  statue 
here  is  the  Venus  Landolina  and  she  is  very  beautiful, 
but  no  goddess  at  all  though  posed  in  the  conventional 
Anadyomene  way,  just  a  very  individual  woman,  tall, 
long-waisted,  broad-hipped,  two  dimples  at  the  base  of 


THE  TRANSFORMED  TEMPLE  OF  ATHENA  AT  SYRACUSE 


Spring  in  Sicily  129 

her  back,  tiny  hollow  at  the  base  of  her  throat,  and  long 
slender  fingers  on  one  exquisite  remaining  hand. 

Another  afternoon  I  drove  to  see  the  sights  of  Ne- 
apolis:  theater,  street  of  tombs,  Ear  of  Dionysius, 
amphitheater  and  altar.  Leave  the  theater  till  last 
for  the  sunset  there  and  disregarding  chronology  go 
first  to  the  great  Roman  amphitheater  of  Augustus' 
time.  The  building  seemed  as  large  as  the  Colosseum 
as  I  looked  down  into  it  but  it  is  far  from  that  though 
larger  than  those  of  Pola  and  Pompeii  and  only  a  little 
smaller  than  Verona's.  It  is  very  beautiful,  for  the 
arena  is  carpeted  with  emerald  grass  and  overgrown 
with  flowers  so  that  I  carried  away  a  great  bunch  of 
nameless  darlings  in  pink,  purple,  white,  yellow,  as  well 
as  some  dear  familiars  like  white  clover,  mignonette 
and  a  sprig  of  spearmint.  The  plan  is  much  like  that 
of  the  Colosseum,  but  it  is  a  sunken  bowl  and  one  looks 
down  into  it  all,  seeing  it  first  from  above.  There  is 
a  great  entrance  passage  and  portal,  and  opposite  that 
another  gate  to  the  city,  a  little  side  door  too  for  the 
carrying  away  of  the  dead.  In  the  center  is  a  cistern, 
in  which  end  two  canals,  perhaps  to  be  used  in  flooding 
the  arena  for  naumachiae,  around  the  arena  a  parapet 
and  underneath  a  crypto-corridor  with  doors  on  the 
arena  for  the  entrance  of  men  and  animals.  The  whole 
ruin  is  most  impressive  and  so  is  the  "altar  of  Hieron 
II,"  near.  The  great  platform  up  to  which  three  steps 
lead  is  clearly  large  enough  for  the  sacrifice  of  four 
hundred  and  fifty  bulls  offered  to  Zeus  the  Liberator 
who  had  freed  Syracuse  from  the  tyranny  of  Thra- 
sybulus.  Opposite  the  altar  is  the  Latomia  del  Para- 
diso,  an  immense  quarry  over  a  hundred  feet  high, 
curiously  named  when  one  thinks  of  the  slavery  of  labor 
which  must  have  gone  on  there.     The  collapse  of  the 


130  Italy  Old  and  New 

rock-roof  makes  it  a  great  cavity  with  only  one  tall, 
rock-pillar  standing  and  over  these  fallen  rocks  and 
walls  and  floors  run  riot  masses  of  trailing  green  vines 
and  bright  flowers.  The  most  interesting  part  is  the 
grotto  called  "the  ear  of  Dionysius"  because  of  the  tra- 
dition that  at  the  little  aperture  at  the  top  Dionysius 
could  hear  even  the  whispers  of  his  captives  imprisoned 
there.  Its  curving  shape  makes  it  a  megaphone  so  that 
the  low  words  of  the  Custode  reverberated  in  the 
depths,  and  his  blow  on  the  iron  lock  of  the  door  was 
increased  to  the  noise  of  artillery.  As  quarry  and 
prison,  the  Latomia  del  Paradiso  has  its  horror  and 
I  was  glad  to  go  on  to  see  the  Nymphaeum  and  its 
water-course  back  of  the  theater  and  the  street  of 
tombs  with  the  huge  wagon-ruts  in  the  road  and  the 
rock-hewn  chambers  on  either  side.  Then  I  went  to 
the  theater  and  sat  down  on  the  upper  seats  for  the 
great  view  over  the  city,  the  plain  and  the  harbor.  The 
theater  itself  is  one  of  the  largest  of  the  Greek  world 
and  once  had  sixty-one  tiers  of  seats  though  now  only 
the  forty-six  lowrer  remain.  They  are  cut  in  the  rock 
of  the  hill,  divided  by  two  praecinctiones  around  the 
wider  of  which  runs  a  rock-wall  with  inscriptions  of  the 
names  of  Hiero  II,  his  queen  Philistis,  Nereide,  daugh- 
ter of  Pyrrhus  and  wife  of  Gelo  II,  and  Olympian 
Jupiter,  names  apparently  used  to  mark  the  different 
sections  of  seats.  I  could  not  see  the  ancient  stage,  for 
workmen  were  busy  preparing  the  setting  for  a  per- 
formance of  Aeschylus'  "Choephoroi,"  putting  up  a 
small  temple  and  Agamemnon's  tomb,  but  I  sat  long 
with  thoughts  of  the  great  ancients  whom  those  seats 
had  held,  Aeschylus,  Pindar,  Aristippus  and  Plato;  and 
of  how  Timoleon,  old  and  blind,  spoke  here  to  his 


Spring  in  Sicily  131 

fellow-citizens;  and  how  here  perhaps  was  given  the 
Persians  of  Aeschylus  after  the  .victory  of  Himera. 

Another  great  day  at  Syracuse  took  me  to  Epipolae 
and  Achradina  with  Thucydides.  The  Sicilian  ex- 
pedition is  almost  too  terrible  a  narrative  to  read  upon 
the  scene  of  its  enactment,  the  horror  becomes  so  mani- 
fest. Yet  on  "that  long  high  ridge  back,  of  the  city," 
I  had  new  thoughts  of  the  significance  of  the  facts. 
Perhaps  it  was  because  it  was  spring  and  Persephone 
returning  to  the  upper  air  had  brought  with  her  a  wealth 
of  yellow  daisies  and  white  thistles  that  starred  the  hill- 
side and  the  sense  of  her  recurrent  power  made  me  muse 
on  the  part  that  Alcibiades'  travesty  of  the  Ceres- 
Proserpina  mysteries  played  in  his  recall.  A  certain 
terrible  divine  nemesis  seemed  to  have  pursued  his 
countrymen  for  his  imputed  sacrilege.  More  than  that, 
not  only  did  the  tragic  drama  of  the  expedition  seem  to 
have  worked  to  its  logical  religious  conclusion,  but 
here  on  the  ridge  overlooking  all  the  magnificent  plain 
which  ancient  Syracuse  occupied,  I  asked  myself  what 
right  greater  nations  like  Athens  and  Sparta  had  to 
make  this  coast  the  battleground  of  their  ambitions. 
On  Epipolae,  the  sympathy  which  had  always  gone  be- 
fore to  the  Athenians  shifted  in  the  balance. 

That  was  the  effect  of  the  scene, — not  of  the  Greek 
historian.  Even  without  the  great  fort  Euryalus,  this 
height  commanded  the  plain  and  from  it  one  can  see 
why  the  Athenians  rushed  to  take  it  and  one  can  trace 
the  lines  of  the  walls  and  counter  walls  which  they  and 
the  Syracusans  built.  Below  too  lies  the  harbor  with 
the  projecting-points  within  which  the  ships  of  the 
second  Athenian  expedition  were  imprisoned  by  the 
chain  of  their  enemy's  vessels.  And  there  back  inland 
must  have  begun  the  sad  retreat  of  the  defeated  army 


132  Italy  Old  and  New 

which  was  to  end  in  capture.  Thucydides'  narrative  is 
too  poignant  for  rehashing. 

Well,  Syracuse  with  the  help  of  Sparta,  saved  her 
independence  and  learned  wisdom  about  her  own  de- 
fence for  the  next  wars,  and  when  the  struggle  with 
Carthage  came,  Dionysius  was  ready  with  this  magnif- 
icent fortress  of  Euryalus  which  today  crowns  the  old 
hill  of  Epipolae.  The  walls  converging  here  he  built 
also  in  an  amazingly  short  space  of  time,  30  stadia  of 
them  in  20  days  by  the  use  of  60,000  men  and  6,000 
pairs  of  oxen.  The  Fort  of  Euryalus  is  an  amazing 
example  of  the  strength  of  a  Greek  fortress.  The 
Custode  took  me  all  over  it  with  careful  explanations 
so  that  I  saw  the  three  fossae,  the  piles  of  masonry  on 
which  the  drawbridge  over  the  third  rested,  the  towers 
which  supported  the  catapults,  the  staircase  cut  in  the 
rock  for  exit  towards  the  city  and  how  it  was  protected 
by  windows  for  archers  opposite  its  entrance,  the  com- 
plicated system  of  corridors  and  galleries,  some  with 
trap-doors  for  speedy  exit,  the  courtyard  for  the  cav- 
alry, the  rings  to  which  to  tie  the  horses,  the  four  under- 
ground storerooms.  The  position  and  the  strength  of 
the  walls  even  now  make  the  Castello  seem  impregnable. 

I  was  glad  to  get  absorbed  in  the  Italian  Custode's 
technical  descriptions  of  methods  of  defense  to  relieve 
for  a  while  the  tragedy  of  the  Athenians,  but  worse 
moments  came  on  my  drive  back  when  I  went  to  the 
Latomia  dei  Cappuccini,  the  quarry-prison  of  the  seven 
thousand  captive  Athenians.  The  ravishing  beauty  of 
the  garden  at  the  bottom  of  those  sheer  stone  walls 
did  not  lessen  the  horror  of  Thucydides'  story  (Thuc. 
VII,  37,  Crawley's  translation).  "The  prisoners  in  the 
quarries  were  at  first  hardly  treated  by  the  Syracusans. 
Crowded  in  a  narrow  hole,  without  any  roof  to  cover 


Spring  in  Sicily  133 

them,  the  heat  of  the  sun  and  the  stifling  closeness  of 
the  air  tormented  them  during  the  day,  and  then  the 
nights,  which  came  on  autumnal  and  chilly,  made  them 
ill  by  the  violence  of  the  change;  besides,  as  they  had  to 
do  everything  in  the  same  place  for  want  of  room,  and 
the  bodies  of  those  who  died  of  their  wounds  or  from 
the  variation  in  the  temperature,  or  from  similar 
causes,  were  left  heaped  together  one  upon  another, 
intolerable  stenches  arose;  while  hunger  and  thirst 
never  ceased  to  afflict  them,  each  man  during  eight 
months  having  only  half  a  pint  of  water  and  a  pint  of 
corn  given  him  daily.  In  short,  no  single  suffering  to 
be  apprehended  by  men  thrust  into  such  a  place  was 
spared  them.  For  some  seventy  days  they  thus  lived 
all  together,  after  which  all,  except  the  Athenians  and 
any  Siceliots  or  Italiots  who  had  joined  in  the  expedi- 
tion, were  sold."  The  Athenians  were  left  there  for 
six  months  longer.  Then  those  who  survived  were 
sold  as  slaves  or  put  to  work  in  the  public  prisons. 
Tradition  says  that  a  few  gained  their  freedom  by  re- 
citing to  the  aesthetic  Syracusans  the  plays  of  Euripi- 
des, and  of  this  story  Browning  has  made  a  great 
poem  in  "Balaustion's  Adventure." 

In  the  quarries,  my  sympathy  went  back  to  the  Athe- 
nians and  I  would  have  been  most  terribly  depressed  in 
the  midst  of  the  fragrance  of  the  flowers  and  the  sing- 
ing of  the  birds  had  it  not  been  for  a  very  sprightly 
Custode.  Italian-like  he  could  not  bear  the  menace  of 
tears  and,  a  Sicilian,  perhaps  he  did  not  wish  me  moved 
by  the  fate  of  an  enemy.  In  any  case,  he  first  attempted 
to  divert  me  by  a  most  idyllic  description  of  the  love- 
making  of  nightingales  with  imitations  of  the  bird-notes 
and  then  he  tried  a  story,  his  own  innocuous  version 
of  the  rape  of  the  Sabine  women.     "You  are  going  to 


134  Italy  Old  and  New 

Greece,  Signorina?  I  should  like  to  go  there  because 
1  hear  the  Greek  women  are  the  most  beautiful  in  the 
world.  Oh!  Yes!  Of  course,  some  Italian  women  are 
handsome,  at  least  in  Rome.  That  is  because  the  Ro- 
man women  are  descended  from  the  early  Sabines. 
Rome  had  no  women  at  first  and  at  a  festa  the  Romans 
said  to  the  Sabine  men:  'Go  away,  go  away.  Your 
mother  and  your  sister  shall  remain  here.'  And  the 
Romans  were  much  larger  and  stronger  than  the  Sa- 
bines so  the  Sabines  had  to  run  away  leaving  their 
handsome  female-relatives  for  the  Romans.  So  when- 
ever you  see  a  very  beautiful  woman  in  Rome,  Sig- 
norina, you  know  she  is  descended  from  the  early 
Sabines!"  The  Custode  appeared  much  pleased  with 
his  success  when  he  saw  me  smiling.  Perhaps  he  did 
help  restore  my  judgment,  for  I  said  severely  to  my 
emotion:  "Such  brutalities  as  this  quarry-prison  are 
the  remnants  of  barbarism  that  war  evokes.  Think  of 
the  conduct  of  the  Athenians  at  Melos."  Yet  I  was 
glad  to  leave  the  beauty  of  the  Latomia  and  I  would 
never  stay  in  the  Villa  Politi  near  its  haunting  gloom. 
As  I  had  begun  my  days  at  Syracuse  under  the  aus- 
pices of  the  water-nymph  Arethusa,  I  had  hoped  to  fin- 
ish them  with  a  visit  to  another,  and  to  see  Cyane's 
famous  pool,  but  I  had  to  postpone  the  trip  up  the  Ana- 
pus  through  the  feathery  papyrus.  I  should  like  to  see 
the  place  where  the  nymph  boldly  rose  from  the  water 
and  with  waving  arms  tried  to  stop  Pluto  in  his  carry- 
ing off  of  Persephone.  I  was  thinking  much  of  that 
Sicilian  story  on  the  long  day's  journey  from  Syracuse 
to  Girgenti,  perhaps  because  the  train  passed  near  the 
vale  of  Enna  and  Castrogiovanni's  long  ridge.  I  had 
decided  not  to  stop,  for  there  are  no  traces  of  the 
temples  of  Demeter  and  Persephone,  and  sulphur  mines 


Spring  in  Sicily  135 

have  laid  waste  the  flowery  meads,  yet,  perversely  when 
we  passed  the  station,  I  was  disappointed  not  to  alight 
and  ascend  the  hill  for  the  magnificent  view  from  this 
umbilicus  of  Sicily  and  for  a  eight  of  Lake  Pergusa 
where  Proserpina  one  day  was  gathering  flowers  when 
in  a  moment  Pluto  saw  her,  fell  in  love  and  carried  her 
away.  But  it  was  not  only  Castrogiovanni-Enna  that 
reminded  me  of  Demeter  and  Persephone.  I  was  leav- 
ing Syracuse,  a  city  where  many  men  like  Hiero  had 
done  "honour  to  Demeter  whose  footsteps  make  red 
the  corn,  and  to  the  feast  of  her  daughter  with  white 
steeds"  (Pindar,  Olym.  6)  and  I  was  going  to  Gir- 
genti,  "lover  of  splendour,  most  beautiful  among  the 
cities  of  men,  haunt  of  Persephone,  who  by  the  banks 
of  Akragas'  stream  that  nourisheth  the  flocks,  inhabitest 
a  citadel  builded  pleasantly"  (Pindar  Pyth.  12).  I 
opened  my  Theocritus  and  read  bit  after  bit  about  the 
goddesses:  the  shepherd's  prayer  to  Demeter  of  the 
threshing-flour:  "Ah,  once  again  may  I  plant  the  great 
fan  on  her  corn-heap,  while  she  stands  smiling  by,  with 
sheaves  and  poppies  in  her  hands"  (Idyl  7,  Andrew 
Lang's  translation)  ;  the  Lityerses  song  of  the  reapers, 
beginning:  "Demeter,  rich  in  fruit,  and  rich  in  grain, 
may  this  corn  be  easy  to  win,  and  fruitful  exceedingly !"  ; 
and  then  the  prayer  that  Hiero  may  drive  the  Cartha- 
ginians from  Sicily  a  passage  most  Sicilian:  "O  thou 
Maiden  that  with  the  Mother  dost  possess  the  great 
burg  of  the  rich  Ephyreans,  by  the  water  of  Lusimeleia, 
would  that  dire  necessity  may  drive  our  foemen  from 
the  isle,  along  the  Sardinian  wave,  to  tell  the  doom  of 
their  friends  to  children  and  to  wives — messengers  easy 
to  number  out  of  so  many  warriors!  But  as  for  our 
cities  may  they  again  be  held  by  their  ancient  masters 
— all  the  cities  that  hostile  hands  have  utterly  spoiled. 


136  Italy  Old  and  New 

May  our  people  till  the  flowering  fields,  and  may  thou- 
sands of  sheep  unnumbered  fatten  'mid  the  herbage, 
and  bleat  along  the  plain,  while  the  kine  as  they  come 
In  droves  to  the  stalls  warn  the  belated  traveller  to 
hasten  on  his  way.  May  the  fallows  be  broken  for  the 
seed-time,  while  the  cicala,  watching  the  shepherds  as 
they  toil  in  the  sun,  in  the  shade  of  the  trees  doth  sing 
on  the  topmost  sprays.  May  spiders  weave  their  deli- 
cate webs  over  martial  gear,  may  none  any  more  so 
much  as  name  the  cry  of  onset!"  (Idyl  16.)  Once 
more  I  took  out  of  my  hand-bag  a  new  treasure,  a  silver 
coin  with  the  head  of  Persephone  on  it,  and  all  the 
postcards  I  had  found  of  representations  of  Demeter 
and  Persephone  in  art.  It  was  the  familiar  relief  of 
Demeter,  Triptolemus  and  Persephone  in  the  Athens 
Museum  that  started  my  mind  to  Eleusis  near  Athens 
and  to  the  mysteries  that  went  on  there  in  the  great 
temple.  From  the  little  that  is  known  of  them  we  can 
understand  their  appeal  and  their  comfort,  for  the  great 
nature  myth  of  Demeter  and  Persephone,  which  grew 
out  of  the  succession  of  the  seasons,  the  return  of  the 
spring  after  winter's  gloom,  came  to  have  a  larger  sig- 
nificance of  the  immortality  for  which  man  craves,  and 
the  mysteries  seem  to  have  presented  to  the  votaries  a 
blessed  assurance  of  life  continuing.  I  never  shall  forget 
my  day  at  Eleusis  and  how  as  I  sat  on  the  steps  in  the 
ruins  of  the  great  temple  I  pictured  the  ceremonies  con- 
nected with  the  shrine :  the  procession  out  from  Athens 
along  the  Sacred  Way,  and  the  baptism  in  the  pools,  the 
night  of  mourning  for  the  lost  Persephone,  the  day  of 
joy  over  her  return,  then  the  sacred  drama  of  the  story 
and  the  mystic  words  of  explanation  uttered  by  the 
hierophant.  It  was  not  only  the  road  on  which  I  had 
walked  as  far  as  Daphni  that  seemed  to  me  sacred,  but 


Spring  in  Sicily  137 

all  the  stones  of  the  great  temple  and  the  sculpture  from 
it  in  the  little  Museum  above.  And  as  if  to  make  a 
memorable  day  more  significant  I  witnessed  in  the  town 
a  modern  Carrying  Off  of  the  Maid. 

The  drama  was  set  in  front  of  a  little  house  painted 
sky-blue,  with  a  huge  pink  geranium  flowering  over  the 
door.  A  group  of  maidens  in  holiday  dress,  white  ker- 
chiefs draped  around  dark  faces,  stood  at  the  right  in 
the  shade  of  another  house,  eagerly  waiting.  Soon  we 
heard  the  sound  of  music  and  three  men  playing  guitars 
and  mandolins  strolled  down  the  road  ahead  of  a  mule 
which  drew  a  long  wagon,  a  sort  of  hay-rick,  painted 
like  the  house,  light-blue.  The  mule  too  was  decorated 
with  silk  handkerchiefs  pendant  from  his  ears,  topped 
by  little  bouquets  of  pink  flowers.  The  cart  stopped  in 
front  of  the  house  and  then  the  ceremony  began  for  out 
of  the  house  was  borne  by  young  girls  all  the  equipment 
for  a  bridal  bed,  each  article  held  sacredly  aloft  on 
upstretched  arms :  first  four  square  pillows  with  ele- 
gant covers  of  linen  and  lace,  two  over  blue  silk,  two 
over  pink;  then  two  long  bolsters  also  thus  elegantly 
decked;  next  linen  sheets,  woven  wool  blankets  in  bril- 
liant colors,  and  spreads  of  white  and  old  rose.  Mean- 
while a  huge  chest  of  drawers  and  a  great  trunk  were 
laden  on  the  cart  and  then  the  Maid  (I  knew  her  at 
once  for  Persephone)  herself  got  in  and  with  her  hus- 
band, blue-eyed  and  blind,  and  the  help  of  three  of  his 
war-mates,  two  sailors  and  a  soldier,  arranged  all  her 
beautiful  bedding  on  the  cart,  and  saw  it  tied  securely 
with  the  pillows  atop.  Persephone  was  in  spring  yel- 
low, a  saffron-colored  silk  slip  over  full  skirt  of  pale 
gold;  her  stiff  outer  jacket  was  black  embroidered  in 
silver  daisies,  and  over  her  head  was  a  tiny  creamy 
scarf,  bordered  with  fine  old  lace.     Under  it  her  eyes 


138  Italy  Old  and  New 

shone  very  dark,  her  hair  very  black,  her  olive-skin 
very  pale.  Strangely,  it  seemed  to  me,  her  mother  was 
there  helping  her,  but  it  was  surely  Demeter  for  she 
was  all  in  corn  color  and  russet  and  gold.  When  the 
ceremony  of  the  cart-loading  was  finished,  the  proces- 
sion started  down  the  road,  the  musicians  ahead  play- 
ing, a  sailor  leading  the  mule,  all  the  townspeople  es- 
corting the  cart,  the  husband  following  and  last  of  all, 
just  behind  her  girl-friends,  on  foot  on  the  dusty  high- 
way, walked  little,  slim  Persephone  turning  back  one 
wistful,  friendly  smile  to  me  as  she  was  carried  off  to 
her  new  home. 

The  old  grandparents  who  stayed  by  the  little  blue 
house,  now  invited  me  in,  for  the  old  man  spoke  a  little 
English,  having  been  in  Chicago  many  years  before. 
So  there  in  a  bare  room  where  the  only  decorations  were 
two  long  white  candles,  white  bridal  wreath  and  veil  on 
the  table,  I  was  gravely  given  candy  and  mastika  and 
drank  the  health  of  Persephone,  praying  that  Pluto 
might  be  kind.  Then  the  old  grandfather  told  me  that 
her  real  name  was  Sophia  Moira  'Wisdom'  and  'Des- 
tiny' !  It  was  as  if  for  me  the  Hierophant  had  spoken 
the  sacred  words  that  explained  the  drama  of  spring  and 
of  love  and  of  the  modern  carrying  off  of  the  maid. 

Now  I  must  return  to  Girgenti.  The  trip  from  my 
hotel  in  Syracuse  to  the  Hotel  des  Temples  lasted  from 
9 :45  A.  M.  to  1 1  :45  P.  M.  although  I  was  on  a  through 
train,  and  perhaps  the  length  of  that  journey  was  the 
reason  why  in  my  one  day  I  never  ascended  the  Rupe 
Atenea  or  visited  the  modern  town,  even  though  I  did 
wish  to  see  the  Roman  sarcophagus  decorated  with  the 
Phaedra-Hippolytus  story.  I  think  I  must  confess 
though  that  what  really  kept  me  away  from  the  city 
was  the  intoxicating  beauty  of  the  country.   I  had  break- 


THE  PREHISTORIC   RL'IX   AT   CEFALU 


ELEUSIS— THE   <\U  KYI  X< ;   OFF   OF   THE    MAID 


Spring  in  Sicily  139 

fast  and  tea  in  the  hotel's  terraced  garden  under  pepper 
and  mimosa  trees,  by  a  wall  festooned  with  saffron 
roses,  and  amid  beds  of  calla  lilies  and  white  stock, 
orange  wall-flowers,  freesia,  crimson  anemones,  pink- 
tipped  daisies,  snapdragons,  nasturtiums  and  geraniums 
and  roses  of  all  colors.  From  the  midst  of  this  wealth 
of  flowers  I  looked  down  and  across  to  a  green  ridge 
crowned  with  two  golden  Doric  temples  and  beyond 
to  the  shining  blue  sea.  Sitting  in  that  loveliness  I 
thought  again  of  Pindar's  apostrophe  to  Acragas — 
"lover  of  splendour,  most  beautiful  among  the  cities 
of  men." 

So  intoxicated  by  beauty  I  went  off  for  a  day  alone 
with  Doric  temples.  A  foot-path  winds  down  from  the 
hotel  garden  to  the  Church  of  S.  Nicola,  and  after  en- 
tering it  to  see  a  curious  marble  font  and  some  quaint 
little  votive  paintings,  I  found  in  the  garden  back  of 
the  church  the  "Oratorio  of  Phalaris,"  a  characterless 
little  ruin  which  had  nothing  but  the  name  to  suggest 
the  cruel  sixth  century  tyrant  and  the  brazen  bull  in 
which  he  roasted  human  sacrifices.  More  attractive  is 
the  fragment  near  of  a  beautiful  rounding  section  of 
carved  marble  cornice  above  a  brown  wall.  A  vigorous 
little  old  woman,  with  the  nicest  weather-beaten  face 
showed  me  these  ruins  and  while  her  eight-year-old 
grand-daughter  picked  lavender  blossoms  for  me,  she 
told  me  about  her  son  lost  in  the  war,  "non  mai  trovato, 
vivo  o  morto." 

Then  I  went  to  the  wonder  of  the  temples.  The  facts 
about  them  are  so  fully  given  in  the  Touring  Club  Guida 
that  I  jotted  down  only  little  details  and  my  emotions. 
(You  remember  the  story  of  the  little  girl  who  wished 
to  have  in  her  diary  two  pages  for  each  day,  one  for 
events  and  the  other  for  "Feelin's"?) 


110  Italy  Old  and  New 

The  Temple  of  Zeus,  once  the  largest  Greek  temple 
oi  antiquity,  seems  at  first  an  inchoate  mass  of  huge 
ruins,  then  becomes  sublime  from  the  great  dimen- 
sions, from  the  size  of  one  capital  lying  in  two  great 
fragments,  and  from  the  Caryatid  giant  prostrate  in 
the  center  of  the  whole  as  though  he  were  the  fallen 
Titan — Spirit  of  the  building.  A  courteous  old  Cus- 
tode  showed  me  a  book  of  architects'  drawings  of  plan 
and  possible  restorations  (with  the  giants  inside  the 
nave,  supporting  the  roof)  but  more — he  voiced  in 
eloquent  Italian  the  greatness  of  the  Greek  genius  that 
conceived  the  building,  the  labor  of  the  Carthaginian 
prisoners  who  built  and  the  pity  of  the  vast  destruction. 

The  Temple  of  Castor  and  Pollux  was  especially 
beautiful  to  me  because  for  years  I  had  lived  with  a 
photograph  of  it  in  my  study  and  now  I  was  face  to 
face  with  the  original,  a  golden  corner  of  four  columns 
and  architrave,  exquisite  from  every  point.  I  was 
sorry  to  learn  that  the  corner  had  been  set  up,  recon- 
structed from  the  pile  of  ruin,  for  that  fact  made  it 
somehow  less  real,  and  yet  I  rejoiced  inconsistently 
that  it  stood  there,  so  perfect  amid  the  olive  trees. 
I  sat  a  long  time  with  it  looking  at  the  traces  of  white 
stucco  on  the  columns  and  the  rich  color  of  the  steps  all 
black  and  white  with  a  yellow  incrustation. 

When  I  went  on,  a  horribly  ragged  and  unkempt 
woman  enticed  me  to  pass  by  her  miserable  home  and 
through  a  ploughed  field  under  olive-trees  to  look  down 
into  the  vast  basin  of  the  piscina  and  across  to  the  two 
columns  that  mark  the  site  of  the  Temple  of  Hephaestus. 
I  did  not  take  the  long  walk  to  that  ruin  or  to  the  so- 
called  "Tomb  of  Theron"  which  I  saw  below  in  the 
plain  though  I  would  have  gone  had  I  believed  the  high, 
heavy  structure  to  be  the  tomb  of  the  great  tyrant  who 


Spring  in  Sicily  141 

with  Gelon's  aid  defeated  the  Carthaginians  in  the 
battle  of  Himera  and  gave  his  city  such  new  power  that 
Pindar  called  him  "the  pillar  of  Acragas."  In  the 
Temple  of  Heracles  I  photographed  the  one  standing 
column  and  while  tracing  the  plans  thought  of  Cicero's 
dramatic  story  of  how  Verres'  men  when  they  tried  to 
carry  off  the  statue  of  the  god  were  indignantly  re- 
pulsed by  the  Acragantini. 

The  dusty  road  led  me  now  to  the  Temple  of  Con- 
cord, but  wishing  to  have  its  most  perfect  beauty  last 
after  one  deep  draught  of  the  joy  of  it  I  went  on  to 
the  Temple  of  Hera  Lacinia.  The  site  is  the  most  mag- 
nificent of  all,  more  isolated  and  high  on  the  ridge  than 
Concord's  and  its  more  utter  ruin  makes  its  golden  col- 
umns a  frame  for  pictures  of  the  Temple  of  Concord 
against  green  hills  above  turquoise  sea  and  of  modern 
Girgenti  on  the  hillside  below  the  Rupe  Atenea.  The 
temple  is  massive  in  length  and  height,  yet  delicate 
because  in  its  ruin  it  is  so  open  to  sunshine  and  wide 
vistas.  The  color  is  a  deep  ochre.  Everywhere  little 
flowers  were  growing  in  the  crevices,  candytuft,  dande- 
lions, star  of  Bethlehem,  and  the  whole  hillside  under 
the  olives  was  covered  with  such  a  wealth  of  starry  blos- 
soms that  again  I  thought  of  rapt  Persephone  and  how 
it  was  no  wonder  that  gathering  Sicilian  flowers,  she 
was  easily  stolen. 

Going  back  towards  the  Temple  of  Concord,  I  de- 
cided to  eat  my  lunch  facing  the  view  of  it,  so  camped 
on  a  bed  of  fragrant  white  clover,  in  hot  sunshine  and 
cool  sea-breeze.  It  is  a  more  perfect  Doric  wonder 
than  anything  I  have  seen  except  at  Paestum  and  more 
magnificently  placed.  The  perfection  of  it  made  me 
reverent  so  that  when  I  entered  later  I  felt  like  kneeling 
in  spite  of  a  talkative  little  old  vendor  of  post-cards  on 


142  Italy  Old  and  New 

the  front  steps.  The  Christians  had  altered  and  meta- 
morphosed it  into  the  church  of  S.  Gregorio  delle  Rape 
(so  unpoetic!)  and  traces  of  their  work,  are  visible  in 
rounded  arches  cut 'through  cella  wall,  but  I  could  not 
be  bitter  since  undoubtedly  it  had  been  saved  by  the 
Saint  of  the  Turnips  from  being  carried  off  block  by 
block  to  build  the  port  of  Empedocles.  I  went  up  one 
of  the  old  winding  stairways  in  the  wall  to  the  superb 
view  at  the  top,  then  walked  over  the  cella  and  the 
colonnade  before  dropping  down  between  two  columns 
just  to  sit  a  while  facing  the  sea  and  here  I  thought  of 
all  the  history  of  the  city:  its  tyrants,  bad  and  good,  its 
sixty  years  of  democratic  government,  its  famous  phil- 
osopher Empedocles,  its  strict  neutrality  during  the 
Athenian  expedition,  the  terrible  sack  by  the  Cartha- 
ginians, Timoleon's  restoration,  its  fate  of  capture  and 
recapture  in  the  first  Punic  War  and  its  final  prosperity 
under  the  Romans.  The  crowning  beauty  of  the  day 
came  when  I  had  climbed  the  hill  to  the  hotel-garden, 
for  suddenly  a  rainbow  arched  over  the  green  ridge 
with  the  temples  to  the  blue  sea. 

And  now  for  the  last  day  in  Sicily  which  I  wish  to 
record.  Sometimes  I  think  that  day  in  Segesta  was  the 
best  of  all  the  spring.  I  went  out  from  Palermo  (hav- 
ing returned  from  Girgenti  in  a  six  hour  trip  in  a 
through  train)  and  it  had  taken  courage  to  start  at  five- 
thirty  in  a  pouring  rain  alone.  But  the  adventurous 
spirit  finds  its  own  reward  and  mine  was  a  day  of  bril- 
liant sunshine,  blowing  clouds  and  marvellous  effects  of 
light  and  shade.  One  leaves  the  train  at  Segesta  sta- 
tion, takes  auto-bus  to  a  bridge  below  the  old  Acropolis, 
then  walks  or  rides  a  donkey,  getting  l>ack  for  the  re- 
turn bus  at  the  bridge  at  one.  I  chose  to  walk  in  spite 
of  deep  mud  that  sucked  my  rubbers  off  and  so  much 


Spring  in  Sicily  143 

water  in  the  Scamander  that  I  had  to  ford  the  tiny 
stream  on  the  Custode's  horse,  but  even  in  spite  of  his 
horror  I  insisted  then  on  having  the  day  to  myself. 

Of  old  Egesta  there  is  nothing  left  but  a  Doric  tem- 
ple and  a  Greek  theater,  but  that  'nothing'  is  much:  so 
marvellously  are  these  ruins  placed  on  the  mountains. 
The  temple  lies  gold  in  a  circle  of  a  green  hill,  and  is 
lovelier  and  lovelier  as  one  gets  nearer  views.  It  has  a 
certain  lightness  of  aspect  though  Doric  from  never 
having  been  finished,  is  a  mere  shell  without  a  cella, 
four  sides  and  pediments,  the  columns  unfluted,  the 
great  stone  steps  still  showing  projections  used  to  tie 
ropes  for  hauling  the  blocks  in  place.  Close  at  hand  the 
color  of  the  travertine  shows  a  variation  from  rich 
ochre  at  the  top  to  gray  at  the  bottom.  The  interior 
was  peculiarly  beautiful,  all  carpeted  with  green  turf, 
across  which  slanted  long  shadows  of  the  columns  and 
between  the  columns  were  framed  glorious  views  of  the 
mountains  round  about  and  of  the  Acropolis  hill ! 

That  old  Acropolis  ridge  lies  opposite  the  hill  of  the 
temple  and  the  theater  is  on  the  very  top,  built  with  a 
high  retaining  wall  though  the  hillside  too  was  utilized 
for  the  cavea.  What  views  there  are  from  the  top  of 
the  seats!  The  bowl  of  the  theater  itself  as  I  looked 
down  seemed  small  with  very  steep  sides  and  the  orches- 
tra's arc  nearly  a  circle.  There  ahead  to  the  north  I 
saw  between  two  promontories  the  blue  sea  at  Castel- 
lamare,  at  the  right  a  hillside  of  red-brown  ploughed 
fields,  to  the  west  the  green  hill  with  the  golden  temple 
and  beyond  a  dim  suggestion  of  Monte  San  Giuliano, 
old  Eryx,  to  the  south  a  hint  of  Calatafimi. 

Here  on  the  highest  seats  of  the  theater,  I  reviewed 
the  story  of  Segesta,  first  of  all  the  Aeneid  coming  to 
my  mind.    If  I  had  had  a  yacht,  I  would  have  rounded 


Ill  Italy  Old  and  New 

the  island  as  Aeneas  did.  You  may  remember  his  ship's 
course  from  Ortygia  to  the  harbor  of  Drepanum  (Aen. 
3,  692-708),  and  how  coming  down  from  a  high  hill- 
top Acestes,  born  of  a  Trojan  mother  to  the  river-god, 
Crinisus,  welcomed  the  strangers  with  rustic  wealth. 
Near  this  shore  Anchises  died;  here  a  year  later  the 
funeral  games  were  celebrated  in  his  memory;  and  here 
when  the  weary  women  had  burned  part  of  the  ships, 
Aeneas  left  with  Acestes  part  of  his  followers  to  found 
a  city  called  from  his  name  Acesta  (Aen.  5). 

So  the  Romans  in  later  days  proudly  claimed  the 
Trojan  origin  for  the  Segestans,  but  another  tradition 
spoke  of  the  prehistoric  Elymi  as  the  original  inhabi- 
tants. Whatever  their  origin,  the  Egestans  early  and 
long  were  rivals  of  their  neighbors,  the  Selinuntines, 
and  their  appeal  to  the  Athenians  for  aid  against  them 
caused  the  fateful  Sicilian  expedition.  After  its  failure 
Egesta  looked  to  Carthage  for  aid  and  found  it,  but 
remained  for  many  years  a  dependent  of  its  new  pro- 
tector. Next  it  sought  an  ally  in  Agathocles  of  Syra- 
cuse but  was  destroyed  by  his  treachery  when  he  was  a 
guest,  and  had  to  be  repopulated.  During  the  first 
Punic  War  it  was  on  the  side  of  the  Romans  who 
changed  its  name  to  Segesta  since  the  connection  of 
Egesta  with  poverty  seemed  a  bad  omen.  Scipio  Afri- 
canus  restored  to  it  the  bronze  statue  of  Diana  which 
had  been  removed  to  Carthage,  but  later  the  corrupt 
Verres  carried  it  off  again. 

A  rather  weak  and  unheroic  history,  these  struggles 
of  Egesta,  I  thought  as  I  sat  there  in  the  theater,  per- 
haps such  as  to  justify  the  tradition  of  the  founding 
from  the  faint  hearts  of  Aeneas'  gallant  band,  "those 
who  have  grown  aweary  of  thy  great  emprise  and  of 
thy  fortunes"  Nautes  bade  him  leave,  "the  old  men  full 


Spring  in  Sicily  145 

of  years  and  sea-worn  matrons,  and  all  of  thy  company 
who  are  weak  and  fearful  of  peril,  and  grant  that  the 
wearied  find  their  city  in  this  land"  (Aen.  5,  712-717, 
Fairclough's  translation).  But  such  romantic  judg- 
ment was  stayed  by  the  visible  beauty  of  the  Segestans' 
monuments  that  have  survived  them  and  which  attest 
achievement  in  art,  whatever  their  political  dependen- 
cies and  struggles.  Then  by  one  of  the  mind's  kaleido- 
scopic turns,  I  suddenly  left  Trojan  legend  and  ancient 
history  and  thought  how  Garibaldi  and  the  Thousand 
won  their  first  great  Sicilian  victory  storming  the  hills 
of  Calatafimi  near,  and  how  on  the  next  day  after  that 
terrible  fighting  "many  of  the  Thousand  tired  as  they 
were  with  battle,"  Freeman  records,  "went  three  miles 
out  of  their  way  into  the  wilderness"  to  admire  the 
lovely  temple  of  Segesta  on  the  hillside.  In  the  face 
of  such  Italian  reverence  for  beauty,  I  too  was  ready 
to  honor  the  Segestans  for  their  monuments. 

It  was  springtime  at  Segesta  again  as  it  was  when 
Garibaldi  passed.  The  Acropolis  hill  was  covered  with 
thousands  of  orange  marigolds  under  the  fennel's  feath- 
ery green  leaves.  A  lark  was  singing  in  the  air.  I  took 
one  last  look  at  the  gray  bowl  of  the  theater,  the  golden 
columns  of  the  temple,  the  distant  green  hills,  the  blue 
sea.  Came  rushing  over  me  all  the  history  of  Sicily 
from  Aeneas  to  Garibaldi  and  the  high  coloring  of  it, 
all  the  epic  quality,  the  springtime  freshness  made  me 
repeat  once  more  Pindar's  song: 

"Sow  then  some  seed  of  splendid  words  in  honour  of 
this  isle,  which  Zeus,  the  Lord  of  Olympus,  gave  unto 
Persephone." 


XII 

RE-READING   CATULLUS   AT   SIRMIO 

THE  place  which  smiles  at  me  beyond  all  others 
when  I  long  to  rest  is  a  simple  fisherman's  town 
on  the  Lago  di  Garda,  Catullus's  Sirmio.  Once 
when  I  was  spending  a  night  there,  the  summer  before 
the  war,  mountains  and  lake,  sky  and  air,  olive-trees 
and  ruins,  and  the  friendly  folk  so  appealed  to  my  imag- 
ination that  I  cherished  a  dream  of  return  and  this  year 
I  caught  my  dream  and  for  a  week  held  it  captive.  It 
seemed  almost  impossible  that  I  could  really  have  ar- 
rived when  I  found  myself  sitting  on  the  little  balcony 
of  my  room  in  the  Grand  Hotel  Regie  Terme,  almost 
in  the  tops  of  tall  firs  and  palm-trees,  with  a  glimpse 
down  in  the  garden  of  rose-pink  oleanders  and  out  be- 
tween tree-tops  to  the  blue  and  smiling  lake.  "What 
did  you  do  for  a  week  at  Sermione?"  I  hear  some 
amazed  tourist  query,  and  then  I  can  hardly  answer 
the  question  as  memory  slips  off  into  the  vague  golden 
leisure  of  those  slowly  gliding,  beautiful  days. 

After  the  noise  and  rush  of  Milan  and  the  hundreds 
of  gay  people  promenading  by  the  cafes,  the  peace  of 
this  tiny  town  seemed  blessed.  During  my  week,  I 
heard  no  language  spoken  but  Italian.  The  other 
guests  at  the  hotel  were  Italians  who  were  there  to  take 
the  famous  baths,  and  as  my  maid  said  when  she  wished 
to  reassure  me  because  my  door  would  not  lock,  "All 
sick  and  polite  people,"  "tutti  ammalati  e  gentili."    At 

146 


CATULLUS'  SIRMIO 


Re-Reading  Catullus  at  Sirmio    147 

first  the  inhabitants  of  the  little  town  as  I  walked  about, 
seemed  to  be  all  children  and  fishermen,  but  gradually 
a  few  hard-working  mothers  and  maids  emerged.  The 
picturesqueness  of  it  all!  Between  the  castle  of  the 
Scaligers  at  the  southern  end  of  Sermione  and  the  Ro- 
man ruins  at  the  northern  point  of  the  peninsula  there 
were  always  scenes  to  stay  my  feet  and  open  my  cam- 
era :  by  the  moat  of  the  castle,  four  bronzed  young 
fishermen  piling  a  great  brown  seine  in  their  lorry;  in 
the  castle  courtyard,  a  group  of  women  in  black  draw- 
ing water  from  the  old  well  to  fill  great  copper  jars; 
on  the  dock,  a  woman  carrying  two  water-pails  at  the 
ends  of  a  wooden  yoke  over  her  neck;  a  family  of  chil- 
dren and  baby-ducks  scrambling  indiscriminately  over 
the  door-steps  of  a  house;  a  pretty  cameriera  in  the 
door-way  of  the  Albergo  Catullo ;  an  old  crone  driving 
three  goats  down  the  main  street;  fruit  venders  offer- 
ing from  large  flat  baskets  yellow  plums  and  red  cher- 
ries; a  glimpse  through  an  open  door-way  into  a  kitchen 
with  hearth  and  oven  almost  identical  with  those  at 
Pompeii;  suddenly,  O  horror!  an  automobile  tooting 
through  the  town,  fairly  grazing  both  sides  of  the 
street,  dashing  out  apparently  for  a  glimpse  at  "the 
grotta  of  Catullus!" 

It  was  out  there  at  the  end  of  the  point  under  the 
olives  above  the  lake,  that  I  spent  my  most  restful 
hours,  but  there  were  many  other  diversions.  One 
morning,  having  persuaded  the  Custode  of  the  Castle 
of  the  Scaligers  to  let  me  roam  about  by  myself  I 
crossed  the  drawbridge  over  the  moat  to  a  fascinating 
half-day  in  the  thirteenth  century,  walking  on  the  ram- 
parts, peering  out  of  small  windows  as  though  looking 
for  an  enemy,  glancing  down  from  dizzying  heights  at 
the  courtyard  with  the  well,  the  moat,  the  two  draw- 


148  Italy  Old  and  New 

bridges,  and  then  at  last  at  the  top  of  the  tower  enjoy- 
ing matchless  views  of  the  lake,  framed  in  six  Gothic 
doorways.  This  was  too  enchanting  a  tower  to  leave 
so  I  sat  down  and  began  mulling  over  the  history  of  the 
Castello  in  a  tiny  Italian  guida  based  on  notes  by  the 
noble  Count  Girolamo  Orti  Manara,  how  in  the  year 
1276  Mastino  I  della  Scala  sent  to  Sermione  two  com- 
panies of  soldiers  to  chase  out  the  heretic  Patarini  who 
were  harrying  this  district,  and  for  their  success  the 
della  Scalas  received  from  the  Pope  the  rights  over  the 
Castle;  how  in  the  next  century  (as  legend  has  it) 
Dante  was  a  guest  in  the  Castello  and  standing  here  on 
this  tower  thought  of  the  verses 

"Suso  in  Italia  bella  giace  un  laco 
A  pie'  dell'  Alpe  che  serra  Lamagna 
Sopra  Tiralli,  ed  ha  nome  Benaco." 

It  was  startling  in  the  midst  of  such  thoughts  of  past 
history  to  hear  the  lightest  of  footfalls  coming  up  the 
tower-stairs.  There  are  one  hundred  and  forty-six 
steps  by  stair  and  ladder  and  I  could  hear  all  the  way 
that  unearthly  tread.  I  realized  that  I  was  all  alone 
in  the  castle  and  was  fairly  holding  my  breath  when  up 
out  of  the  trap-door  came  a  kitten's  head!  He  was 
just  as  terrified  as  I  was,  every  hair  on  end,  eyes  dilated, 
but  curiosity  had  sent  him  to  the  top  and  somehow 
steadied  him  safely  down  again.  And  I  quickly  fol- 
lowed! 

One  evening  after  dinner,  when  I  had  gone  out  on 
the  pier  to  see  all  the  sunset,  a  fisherman  asked  if  I  did 
not  wish  a  ride  in  his  row-boat.  To  my  "quanto?" 
("How  much?")  he  gave  the  usual  Sermione  answer: 
"Faccia  Lei"  ("Anything  you  wish"),  so  after  mild 
bargaining,  I  embarked  and  got  him  to  let  me  try  row- 


Re-Reading  Catullus  at  Sirmio    149 

ing  the  boat  standing  as  he  did.  When  I  could  not 
move  the  monster  at  all,  he  was  very  much  pleased  with 
himself  and  proud  of  his  strength  as  he  threw  his 
weight  on  the  oars  and  pushed  off  and  was  all  for  hav- 
ing me  go  entirely  around  the  point  to  see  la  Boiola, 
the  chloride  of  sulphur  spring  which  bubbles  up  in  the 
lake  and  has  been  piped  to  the  baths,  but  I  having  heard 
that  the  odor  recalled  chemical  laboratories  or  bad 
eggs  convinced  him  that  I  foolishly  preferred  the  sun- 
set to  scientific  observations. 

A  little  steamboat  makes  a  day's  trip  around  the 
whole  lake  and  twice  I  went  off  on  that  in  the  early 
morning,  once  forgetting  Touring  Club  Guida  and 
Baedeker  just  to  enjoy  sheer  beauty,  another  time  with 
books,  maps,  and  resolution  for  knowledge.  In  either 
mood  the  lake  is  adorable.  Kaleidoscopic  pictures  turn 
quickly:  lemon  trees  with  golden  fruit  in  white  arbors 
on  terraced  hills;  lake-side  towns  with  hotels  and  villas 
in  pale  browns,  rose-color,  yellow,  blue  with  rows  of 
white  and  pink  oleanders  in  front  of  them  and  about 
them  green  gardens  with  ivy-covered  walls;  at  one  land- 
ing, a  picturesque  group  of  people,  bare-footed  friar 
in  brown  cowl,  several  Alpini  with  their  jaunty  hats  and 
feathers,  two  resplendent  Bersaglieri  in  red  and  black 
with  cocked  hats,  an  old  man  selling  bunches  of  lemons 
hanging  in  their  long  green  leaves,  a  company  of  ragged 
little  dirt-color  boys  around  a  small  girl  in  a  scarlet 
dress,  women  washing  clothes,  kneeling  on  slanting 
boards  at  the  water's  edge;  views  of  the  lake  itself, — a 
fairy  island  with  towering  villa  and  long  narrow  stretch 
of  garden  pointing  upward  in  cypresses;  a  long  white 
waterfall  rushing  down  in  cascades  through  deep 
gorge;  tiny  churches  perched  on  incredible  heights;  an 
island  fortress  shaped  like  a  great  battleship;  and  then 


150  Italy  Old  and  New 

shifting  tones  on  water  and  mountains.  During  the 
day,  the  colors  were  very  brilliant,  the  lake  the  deepest 
of  blues,  changing  to  emerald  near  the  shore,  the  moun- 
tains, some  bright  green  with  verdure,  others  clear  gray 
crags,  others  blue  heights  that  seemed  less  rock  than 
air  as  they  dissolved  into  masses  of  white  clouds.  Then 
as  we  returned  in  the  hot  sun  of  afternoon,  the  eastern 
bank  was  all  iridescent  blues  and  lavenders  in  a  warm 
golden  mist  and  I  could  not  bear  to  look  at  the  moun- 
tains long,  for  a  certain  ecstasy  hanging  over  them.  No 
Elysian  plains  for  me !  My  Paradise  must  be  made  of 
heights  and  water. 

The  other  end  of  the  lake  was  particularly  thrilling 
to  one  who  had  been  there  in  1913,  for  Riva  with  the 
upper  point  of  the  Lago  di  Garda  was  then  Austrian 
and  now  part  of  the  Italia  Redenta  of  the  Trentino. 
The  beautiful  little  city  of  Riva  during  the  whole  war 
was  subjected  to  such  violent  bombardment  that  it  was 
almost  entirely  destroyed.  Yet  the  Italian  troops 
about  Riva  during  the  final  battle  of  Vittorio  Veneto 
were  able  to  hold  the  enemy  locked  in  their  position 
and  by  hindering  the  transfer  of  the  reserves  to  help 
the  rapid  and  effective  action  of  the  troops  that  coming 
up  the  Val  Lagarina  and  descending  from  Tonale 
hurled  themselves  on  Trento  cutting  off  completely  the 
retreat  of  the  Austrian  troops  of  the  Trentino  so  that 
almost  all  of  them  were  made  prisoners.  The  town 
showed  its  war-scars.  The  old  Hotel  Riva  where  I 
stayed  in  1913  had  no  window-glass  left,  was  full  of 
holes  from  the  bombardment,  was  only  a  shell  of  a 
building  with  the  beautiful  garden  dead.  Other  struc- 
tures were  being  repaired.  Italian  soldiers  were  on 
guard  in  front  of  La  Rocca.  Above,  the  Tricolor 
floated.     Lake  Benacus  seemed  rippling  on  the  shore 


Re-Reading  Catullus  at  Sirmio    151 

in  endless  laughter  because  all  its  waves  are  now 
Italian. 

Besides  such  quiet  lake  trips,  I  had  the  excitement  of 
hearing  Grand  Opera  while  I  was  at  Sermione  !  It  was 
passing  strange  to  go  with  a  company  of  gay,  young 
Italians  on  the  long  automobile  ride  by  Vergil's  little 
Mincius  river,  to  the  great  Roman  amphitheater  at 
Verona  and  there  to  witness  Boito's  "Mefistofele"  pre- 
sented magnificently  under  the  full  moon  to  thousands 
of  Italians  who  were  wild  with  enthusiasm  over  beauty 
of  setting  and  music  and  dancing.  I  suppose  it  was 
partly  the  theme  of  the  opera,  partly  its  lyric  quality, 
partly  the  fact  that  I  had  come  over  from  Sermione 
that  made  me  wish  in  the  midst  of  the  dance  of  slender 
girls  before  a  Greek  temple  in  honor  of  the  divine 
Helen  and  her  eternal  beauty,  that  Catullus  could  have 
seen  the  Opera ! 

The  next  day  was  one  of  those  I  spent  with  the  poet 
on  the  point  of  the  peninsula.  The  first  time  I  had  gone 
out  there,  on  the  dear  familiar  walk  past  the  view  of  the 
white  villa  on  the  Cortine  hill  and  the  tiny  church  of  S. 
Pietro,  gray  in  the  silver  olives,  and  along  the  foot- 
path on  the  eastern  ledge  above  the  cerulean  lake,  I  had 
received  a  great  shock,  for  while  I  was  thinking  intently 
of  Catullus,  suddenly  at  the  end  of  the  peninsula  on  the 
very  top  of  the  cliffs  I  came  upon  two  great  circular 
cement  foundations  for  anti-aeroplane  guns,  the  instru- 
ment for  directing  their  operations,  and  piles  of  earth- 
works and  when  I  descended  into  the  Roman  ruins,  I 
found  in  "Lesbia's  bower"  an  officers'  hut  so  construct- 
ed of  gray  stones  that  it  seemed  a  part  of  these  fourth 
century  remains.  As  I  stood  in  amazement  on  the  top 
again  looking  at  these  traces  of  the  Great  War,  two  of 
the  town  men  joined  me  and  the  younger  one  began  to 


152  Italy  Old  and  New 

talk  of  the  fighting,  pointing  out  the  direction  in  which 
Trcnto,  the  Corso  and  the  Piave  lay  and  describing 
eloquently  how  near  the  Austrians  came.  Indeed  it 
was  only  great  Monte  Baldo  stretching  there  its  Titan 
length  that  protected  Sermione, 

"Raldo,  patcrno  monte,  protegge  la  bella  da  l'alto 
Co'l  sopracciglio  torbido." 

So  when  I  was  left  alone  at  last,  it  was  with  a  very 
poignant  realization  of  the  Great  War,  intermingled 
with  reminiscences  of  Catullus,  Vergil  and  Carducci, 
that  I  flung  myself  down  under  an  olive-tree  facing  the 
lake  and  the  mountains.  Here  one  inevitably,  first  of 
all,  rereads  three  poems,  Catullus's 

Paene  insularum,  Sirmio,  insularumque 
ocelle, 
"Half-islet  Sirmio,  the  gem  of  all 
The  isles," 

Tennyson's 

"Row  us  out  from  Desenzano,  to  your  Sirmione  row!" 

and  Carducci's 

"Ecco:  la  verde  Sirmio  nel  lucido  lago  sorride, 
fiore  de  le  penisole." 

And  with  their  soothing  restraint  I  left  for  the  time  the 
thoughts  of  the  anti-aeroplane  guns  and  went  back  to 
Catullus'  life  here  in  the  first  century  before  Christ,  and 
the  reading  his  poetry  among  Italians  in  the  setting  of 
his  own  Sirmio  seemed  to  give  me  a  new  sense  of  its 
values  and  his  personality. 

The  events  of  his  life  are  so  slight  that  a  few  sen- 


Re-Reading  Catullus  at  Sirmio    153 

tences  compass  them.  Born  at  Verona,  educated  in 
Rome,  he  fell  in  love  with  a  notorious  beauty,  married 
and  much  his  senior,  who  was  the  subject  of  his  verse 
until  disillusion  annihilated  passion.  Then  the  sharp- 
ness of  death  in  the  loss  of  an  only  brother  intensified 
loneliness,  and  his  musings,  doubly  melancholy,  were 
broken  only  by  a  trip  to  Bithynia  in  the  suite  of  Mem- 
mius  which  did  not  bring  him  great  wealth  but  enabled 
him  to  lay  pious  offerings  on  his  brother's  mound  in  the 
Troiad.  In  the  east,  homesickness  awoke  ardor  for 
Italy  and  he  returned  to  console  himself  with  the  coun- 
try and  with  a  friendship  for  a  beautiful  boy,  and  to 
have  a  slight  hand  in  politics  by  flinging  virulent  lam- 
poons at  Julius  Caesar's  unworthy  minions  until  some- 
how a  reconciliation  was  effected  between  the  young 
poet  and  the  great  general,  perhaps  by  Catullus  Senior 
who  was  Julius  Caesar's  friend.  Certainly  invectives 
ceased,  and  honor  was  paid  to  Caesar  in  one  poem. 
Then  hints  of  illness  began  and  suddenly  there  were  no 
more  lyrics  even,  for  after  thirty  or  thirty-three  years* 
Catullus'  life  flared  out. 

How  vivid  a  personality  is  painted  by  lyric  poetry 
against  the  simple  background  of  these  few  happen- 
ings !  What  a  boyish  and  gay  spirit  dashes  across  these 
pages !  Now  in  mock-seriousness  Catullus  begs  Pollio 
to  send  back  the  napkin  which  he  had  carried  off  from  a 
dinner-party;  now  he  upbraids  his  dearest  Calvus  for 
presenting  him  with  a  book  of  second-rate  poetry;  now 
he  urges  Fabullus  to  come  to  dinner  bringing  along  a 
lady  and  the  wine  and  the  salt  and  the  joy,  for  the  purse 
of  his  Catullus  is  full  of  cobwebs;  now  he  teases  Calvus 
about  being  a  great  lawyer  when  he's  such  a  tiny  per- 

*  The  dates  of  his  death  and  birth  are  uncertain,  but  this  is  the 
consensus  of  the  best  authorities. 


154  Italy  Old  and  New 

son;  and  again  he  satirizes  Arrius  who  would  be  ele- 
gant, for  the  way  in  which  he  adds  and  drops  his  h's. 
Such  light-hearted  teasing  and  gay  humor  make  us 
wonder  if  the  boy  ever  had  a  serious  moment. 

For  answer  there  is  the  great  sequence  of  the  love- 
poems  to  Lesbia,  more  complete  and  more  subtle  an 
inner  history  than  the  Shakespeare  or  the  Rossetti  son- 
nets. Sappho  he  must  take  for  the  model  of  his  declara- 
tion of  passion  and  for  once  translation,  forged  from 
such  white-hot  metal,  assumes  perfect  shape.  Daring 
taunts  follow  about  that  stupid  mule,  the  husband,  who 
does  not  see  that  Lesbia's  constant  criticisms  of  Catul- 
lus show  her  absorbing  interest.  Then,  love  acknowl- 
edged, the  boy  breaks  forth  into  the  maddest  arithmetic 
of  multitudinous  kisses  and  discounting  all  serious  re- 
flections of  old  age  chants  in  the  face  of  swift-coming 
death, 

Vivamus,  mea  Lesbia,  atque  amemus, 
"Let  us  live,  my  Lesbia,  and  let  us  love." 

Out  of  this  early  happiness  come  the  two  dainty  trifles 
for  Lesbia's  sparrow,  full  of  the  tenderness  for  little 
feathery  pets  that  can  be  such  a  comfort  in  their  play- 
fulness and  such  a  sorrow  in  their  loss.  Then  it  is  not 
very  long  before  the  time  comes  when  Catullus  begins 
wretchedly  to  look  back  at  those  bright  suns  when  there 
were  many  jests  flying  between  the  lovers  and  their  one 
grief  was  the  death  of  the  little  bird!  For  now  he 
knows  that  Lesbia's  favors  do  not  go  to  him  alone. 
Yet  her  sudden  appearance  can  still  lift  him  from  dark- 
ness to  midday  sunshine  and  he  worships  again  at  the 
shrine  of  his  goddess  until  her  repeated  acts  of  faith- 
lessness make  him  vacillate  between  jealousy  and  ador- 
ation.    "Odi  et  amo,"  'I  hate  and  I  love,'  he  exclaims 


Re-Reading  Catullus  at  Sirmio    155 

in  his  torture,  and  then  writes  his  grief  in  tenderness 
rather  than  in  bitterness: 

"Once  you  said,  Lesbia,  you  knew  only  Catullus,  once 
you  said  you  would  not  prefer  Jove  himself  as  a  lover. 
Then  I  cherished  you  not  as  common  men  do  their  mis- 
tresses but  as  a  father  cherishes  his  sons  and  his  sons-in- 
law.  Now  I  know  you.  So  though  I  love  thee  more, 
you  are  to  me  much  cheaper  and  much  lighter.  'How 
can  it  be  ?'  you  ask.  Because  such  injury  compels  a  lover 
to  love  more,  but  to  honor  less." 

That  conflict  of  emotions  shortly  becomes  its  own 
destruction  and  all  the  idealism  of  the  poet  and  the 
vigor  of  the  youth  revolt  against  the  torpor  that  is 
creeping  over  all  his  senses,  expelling  joy  from  his 
heart,  and  he  prays  in  the  name  of  his  own  honor  and 
his  own  purity  that  he  may  cast  off  the  shameful  dis- 
ease which  his  passion  has  become.  He  has  seen  his 
Lesbia  now  as  Cicero  saw  her,  "the  Medea  of  the  Pala- 
tine," as  the  world  saw  her,  the  notorious  Clodia, 
her  price  a  copper  coin,  and  in  horror  at  her  true 
character  he  hurls  to  his  friend  Caelius  his  recognition 
of  the  brutal  facts : 

"Caelius,  my  Lesbia,  that  Lesbia,  that  Lesbia  whom 
alone  Catullus  loved  more  than  himself  and  all  his  dear 
ones,  now  at  the  crossroads  and  in  the  alley-ways  de- 
bauches the  descendants  of  the  great-souled  Remus." 

After  such  clear  sight,  a  poet  could  not  again  suc- 
cumb and-  when  after  his  return  from  the  east,  two 
friends  tried  to  act  as  Lesbia's  go-betweens  for  new 
reconciliation,  the  message  that  he  sends  her  is  uncom- 
promisingly stern  though  ironically  set  in  that  Sapphic 
strophe  in  which  he  first  declared  his  love,  but  never 
again  used: 

"Carry  a  few  words,  not  pleasant,  to  'my  lady.'    Let 


156  Italy  Old  and  New 

her  live  and  flourish  with  her  adulterers,  the  hundreds 
whom  she  embraces  and  rules  together,  loving  no  one 
truly,  ruining  all.  Let  her  not  look  for  my  love,  as 
before,  for  through  her  sin,  it  has  fallen  dead  like  a 
flower  on  the  edge  of  a  meadow,  cut  down  by  the  pass- 
ing plough." 

At  the  end  of  the  love-story  how  well  we  have  come 
to  know  boy  and  lover  1  The  longer  poems  add  little 
to  our  acquaintance  with  Catullus'  personality  for  they 
only  play  variations  on  the  love-motif, — the  gay  youth- 
ful love-making  of  Acme  and  Septimius,  young  love 
consummated  in  the  wedding-hymn  for  two  friends, 
Julia  and  Manlius,  the  ugliness  of  lust  in  the  famous 
poem  where  the  House-Door  narrates  the  amours  of 
its  mistress,  the  long  mythological  epyllion  on  the  mar- 
riage of  Peleus  and  Thetis.  All  these  show  the  tech- 
nique of  the  poet  more  than  himself.  Yet  there  is  one 
touch  of  new  feeling  in  a  passage  which  suggests  that 
Catullus  had  thought  of  the  joys  of  fatherhood,  the 
wish  that  Julia  and  Manlius  may  have  a  little  Tor- 
quatus,  the  image  of  his  sire,  who  with  a  smile  will 
stretch  out  from  his  mother's  breast  his  tiny  hands  to 
his  father.  Only  one  who  loved  children  could  have 
written  those  strophes. 

I  was  inclined  to  dally  with  this  thought  and  with 
the  tragedy  of  the  Lesbia  poems,  reflecting  on  what 
Catullus  had  missed,  but  he  is  not  one  to  evoke  pity. 
He  found  too  much  in  life  and  lived  with  too  much 
ardor  for  any  vain  regrets.  Friendship  was  to  him  as 
intense  a  feeling  as  love  to  many  so  that  he  could  go 
wild  with  excitement  over  Veranius'  coming  home  or 
over  the  cleverness  and  charm  of  Calvus'  verses.  Such 
was  his  devotion  to  his  brother  that  the  loss  of  him 
buried  all  his  home,  wrecked  all  joys,  and  banished 


Re-Reading  Catullus  at  Sirmio    157 

love's  sweet-bitterness.  He  knew  Libitina,  that  two- 
faced  goddess  of  life  and  death  whom  the  Romans 
served  and  in  proportion  as  life  was  intense  to  him  was 
death  bitter.  No  religion  consoled  him,  for  his  two 
marvellous  hymns,  the  chorus  to  Diana,  the  goddess 
of  mountains,  green  woods,  hidden  glades  and  singing 
streams,  and  the  orgiastic  threnody  of  the  self-muti- 
lated Attis,  priest  of  Cybele,  are  but  vicarious  experi- 
ence, not  the  personal  aspiration  of  a  soul  to  the  divine. 
And  when  the  poet  himself  falls  sick,  he  does  not  offer 
prayers  or  vows,  but  wants  a  friend  and  a  letter  in  the 
most  human  way.  And  the  sympathy  which  he  wished 
from  his  friends  made  him  know  what  to  give  them  in 
times  of  need.  Could  any  letter  of  consolation  be  more 
delicate  and  sensitive  than  his  to  Calvus  on  the  death 
of  his  wife? 

"If  any  comfort  can  go  to  the  mute  dead  from  our 
sorrow,  Calvus,  from  the  longing  with  which  we  re- 
new old  loves  and  weep  for  friendships  once  lost,  surely 
Quintilia  is  feeling  not  so  much  sorrow  over  her  early 
death  as  joy  in  your  love." 

Catullus  had  one  source  of  comfort  when  friends 
were  absent,  love  proved  false  and  death  brought  sepa- 
ration. That  was  the  beauty  of  the  outdoor  world.  It 
surely  meant  something  that  his  villas  were  in  two  of 
the  most  beautiful  spots  in  Italy,  near  Tibur,  whose 
rushing  river  and  falling  waters  Horace  has  celebrated 
and  on  Lake  Benacus,  whose  mountains  and  water  have 
been  the  theme  of  Vergil,  Dante  and  Carducci.  Never 
did  poems  of  home-coming  show  finer  ardor  than  Catul- 
lus'. When  spring  comes  upon  him  in  Bithynia,  his 
mind  fairly  shivers  in  its  eagerness  to  be  travelling; 
his  happy  feet  thrill  with  desire.  Back  at  Sirmio,  he 
dedicates  a  little  model  of  the  yacht  that  bore  him  home 


158  Italy  Old  and  New 

(or  could  it  have  been  the  vessel  itself?)  with  praise 
for  its  safe  convoy  from  the  remote  Pontus  even  to  this 
limpid  lake.  Then,  at  rest,  with  what  love  and  ecstasy 
he  salutes  his  Sirmio  : 

Pacne  insularum,  Sirmio,  insularumque 
ocelle,  quascumque  in  liquentibus  stagnis 
marique  vasto  fert  uterque  Neptunus, 
quam  te  libenter  quamque  laetus  inviso, 
vix  mi  ipse  credens  Thyniam  atque  Bithynos 
liquisse  campos  et  videre  te  in  tuto. 
o,  quid  solutis  est  beatius  curis, 
cum  mens  onus  reponit,  ac  peregrino 
labore  fessi  venimus  larem  ad  nostrum 
desideratoque  acquiescimus  lecto! 
hoc  est,  quod  unumst  pro  laboribus  tantis. 
salve,  o  venusta  Sirmio,  atque  ero  gaude: 
gaudete  vosque,  o  liquidae  lacus  undae; 
ridete,  quidquid  est  domi  cachinnorum. 

"Half-islet  Sirmio,  the  gem  of  all 

The  isles,  which  god  of  sea  or  god  of  mere 
Upholds  in  glossy  lake  or  ocean  drear, 
On  thee  with  heart  and  soul  my  glances  fall. 

"Scarce  can  I  think  me  safe  when  I  recall 
Bithynia's  plains  afar  and  see  thee  near: 
Ah,  what  more  joyous  than  the  mind  to  clear 
Of  care,  and  burdens  lay  aside  that  gall? 

"By  distant  travail  worn  we  win  our  hearth 
And  on  the  long-wished  couch  siesta  take: 
This  is  the  one  reward  for  those  who  roam. 
Hail,  Sirmio,  the  fair!     Greet  me  with  mirth; 

"Be  mirthful,  Lydian  waters  of  the  lake! 

Laugh  out,  ye  realms  of  merriment  at  home !"  * 

»  Translated  by  J.  W.  Duff. 


Re-Reading  Catullus  at  Sirmio    159 

Life  is  not  over  for  a  poet  who  can  so  rejoice  in  the 
beauty  of  his  own  place. 

As  Catullus  had  his  disillusions  about  Lesbia,  so  we 
have  our  disappointments  about  him  when  after  all  this 
he  diverts  himself  with  the  boy,  Juventius,  and  writes 
verses  of  unspeakable  openness  against  the  vices  of  his 
enemies,  but  it  is  hard  for  one  age  to  tolerate  the  dif- 
ferent standards  of  another  and  Catullus  alive  might 
defend  his  frankness  and  lampoon  much  refined  hypoc- 
risy in  the  twentieth  century.  Probably  he  would  be 
willing  to  see  the  men  of  today  at  their  best  as  well  as 
their  worst,  and  in  his  own  Italy  he  would  still  find 
poet-friends  who  would  understand  all  his  ardor,  all 
his  passion,  all  his  pain.  Just  across  the  lake  at  Gar- 
done,  D'Annunzio  even  now  is  writing  new  lyrics. 

One  day  and  another  as  out  on  the  point  of  Sirmio 
I  lifted  my  eyes  from  Catullus'  poetry  to  the  mountains 
and  the  lake,  I  thought  of  the  great  Italians  who  had 
been  here :  Vergil,  listening  to  Benacus  rising  with  the 
surf  and  the  roar  of  the  sea,  and  naming  her  in  the  most 
magnificent  praise  of  his  native  land  that  ever  poet 
wrote,  Dante  on  the  Gothic  tower,  seeing  his  vision  of 
Italy's  future,  Garibaldi,  halted  at  Salo's  curving  bay 
across  the  lake  and  allowed  no  share  in  the  battle  of 
Solferino  but  biding  his  time  of  service  for  his  country, 
Carducci  meditating  here  on  Catullus  and  Vergil  and 
Dante  and  so  carrying  on  the  great  literary  tradition  of 
his  race,  then  D'Annunzio  over  at  Gardone  recuperat- 
ing from  the  passion  for  the  Great  War  with  which 
he  had  fired  Italy  and  written  his  finest  poems.  Sirmio 
took  me  near  the  heart  of  her  greatest  sons. 

And  re-reading  Catullus  here  under  the  olives  near 
the  anti-aeroplane  gun  foundations  made  me  under- 
stand better  the  Young  Italy  that  died  in  the  Great  War 


160  Italy  Old  and  New 

tn  the  number  of  five  hundred  thousand  and  the  Young 
Italy  that  is  trying  to  help  reconstruct  the  country  to- 
day. P'or  the  young  Italian  intellectual,  like  Catullus, 
has  in  him  something  of  the  boy  and  something  of  the 
poet,  something  of  old-world  disillusion  and  something 
of  southern  ardor,  a  delicate  sense  of  subtle  shades  of 
feeling,  a  revolt  against  brutal  vulgarity,  a  fondness  for 
children,  a  belief  in  the  meaning  of  home,  a  passionate 
devotion  to  the  beauty  of  his  country,  and  the  power  of 
rising  from  personal  loss  and  disillusion  to  new  creative 
work  and  to  a  carrying-on  of  great  literary  or  national 
traditions.  It  was  verily  the  eternal  spirit  of  Italian 
youth  that  I  felt  on  re-reading  Catullus  at  Sirmio. 


XIII 

THE    ROME   THAT    HORACE    KNEW 

THERE  is  a  certain  haunting  quality  in  a  place 
that  comes  from  association  with  a  person. 
Some  particular  name  rushes  into  memory  and 
a  vast  throng  of  ideas  and  feelings  whirl  after  the  name 
until  for  us  that  special  individual  becomes  in  a  very 
real  sense  the  genius  of  the  place,  genius  loci,  the  im- 
manent spirit  to  whom  the  Romans  used  to  erect  their 
altars.  For  me  in  Rome  and  in  the  country  near  Rome, 
the  thought  of  Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus  has  been  so 
constantly  with  me  that  my  altar  of  the  genius  loci  here 
I  raise  to  him  and  burn  on  it  the  incense  of  these  memo- 
ries. I  do  not  wish  to  try  to  give  a  complete  picture 
of  the  Augustan  Rome  that  Horace  knew,  but  rather 
to  run  over  the  definite  allusions  to  special  parts  of 
Rome  in  Horace's  poems,  to  picture  the  life  of  the  city 
as  he  saw  it,  and  finally  to  show  something  of  his  days 
in  the  country  near  Rome. 

Of  the  seven  hills  which  Horace  says  found  favor  in 
the  eyes  of  the  gods  (C.  S.  7)  he  mentions  Palatine, 
Capitol,  Esquiline,  Aventine,  the  hill  of  Quirinus  and 
the  Mons  Vaticanus.  The  Palatine  is  in  Horace  the 
precinct  of  Palatine  Apollo  and  in  an  ode  (C.  1,  31) 
he  alludes  to  the  dedication  of  the  great  marble  temple 
which  Augustus  erected  to  his  patron  god,  asking: 
"What  does  the  bard  demand  of  Apollo  now  that  he  is 
enshrined?  For  what  does  he  pray  as  he  pours  forth 
new  wine  from  the  patera?"  (C.  1,  31,  1-3),  and  after 

161 


162  Italy  Old  and  New 

that  poet's  prayer,  he  refers  again  and  again  to  the 
Palatine  Apollo  who  with  just  eyes  regards  his  altars 
on  the  hill,  and  to  the  library  connected  with  the  temple 
in  which  Roman  poets  longed  to  have  a  place.  The 
temple  site  on  the  southwestern  part  of  the  Palatine  is 
now  regarded  by  many  scholars  as  not  the  Temple  of 
Jupiter  Victor,  but  the  foundation  of  the  Augustan 
Temple  of  Apollo.  However,  the  whole  problem  of 
the  Palatine  is  now  more  than  ever  complicated  be- 
cause the  remarkable  discoveries  made  in  recent  years 
of  Republican  and  Augustan  buildings  under  the  upper 
Imperial  palaces  are  still  unpublished. 

The  Capitol,  where  stood  the  Temple  of  Jupiter,  is 
in  Horace  a  symbol  of  Rome's  power,  so  it  should  for- 
ever stand  refulgent  (C.  33,  42-3)  and  thither  forever 
should  ascend  in  religious  procession  the  pontifex  max- 
imus  and  the  silent  Vestal  (C.  3,  30,  7-9).  To  the 
Capitol  it  is  that  the  Romans  should  send  their  gems 
and  stones  and  useless  gold  (C.  3,  24,  45-8).  It  was 
for  the  Capitol  that  Cleopatra  was  preparing  mad  ruin 
(C.  I.  37,  6)  and  it  was  thither  that  the  triumphal 
processions  wound  up  the  hill  to  display  to  the  god  some 
general  crowned  with  bay,  because  he  had  crushed  the 
threats  of  haughty  enemies.  Here,  too,  proud  boast  of 
the  Augustan  Age,  hung  the  Roman  standards,  once  lost 
to  the  Parthians  and  displayed  on  their  proud  pillars, 
now  restored  to  Jupiter  through  Augustus'  power  (C. 
4,  15,  4-8).  Though  Rome  still  stands,  the  temple  of 
Jupiter  is  gone  today,  all  its  past  magnificence  reduced 
to  old  foundations  under  the  modern  Palazzo  Caffa- 
relli  that  have  very  recently  been  uncovered,  and  one 
great  fluted  drum  of  a  marble  column  from  a  rebuild- 
ing by  Domitian  long  after  Horace's  time,  but  the  hill 
as  the  Campidoglio  is  still  the  symbol  of  Rome's  great- 


The  Rome  That  Horace  Knew    163 

ness  and  as  I  walked  up  its  long  flight  of  steps  by  the 
live  wolf  and  the  live  eagle  in  the  garden  to  the  statues 
of  the  Dioscuri  at  the  top  and  the  great  Republican  hall 
of  the  Tabularium,  I  felt  that  Horace's  Capitol  still 
does  stand  gleaming  with  the  spirit  of  Rome. 

The  Aventine  too  for  Horace  was  the  home  of  a  god, 
for  as  Apollo  presided  over  Palatine  and  Jupiter  over 
Capitol  so  Diana  held  her  sway  on  the  Aventine  and 
from  there  regarded  the  prayers  of  the  quindecimviri 
and  turned  friendly  ears  to  the  petitions  of  the  young 
(C.  S.  69-72).  The  temple,  rebuilt  in  the  time  of  Au- 
gustus, may  appear  in  a  fragment  of  the  marble  plan 
of  Rome,  but  we  know  little  of  it  except  its  probable 
site  west  of  Santa  Prisca,  the  little  church  adjacent  to 
the  Castello  dei  Cesari  where  you  will  go  for  tea  on 
the  terrace  to  watch  the  sunset  gild  the  Palatine  ruins 
opposite. 

The  Esquiline  had  for  Horace  associations  far  more 
personal,  for  it  was  here  that  Maecenas'  lofty  palace 
towered  to  the  stars  (Ep.  9,  3-4).  Here  once  there 
had  been  a  burial  ground  of  the  poor  and  the  humble 
and  excavations  have  shown  the  sort  of  necropolis 
which  Horace  describes  in  Sat.  1,  8,  whither  slaves  used 
to  carry  the  bodies  of  their  fellows  in  cheap  boxes, 
where  once,  amid  the  bones  of  the  dead,  thieves  made 
their  haunts  and  witches  gathered  charms.  Maecenas 
reclaimed  all  that  ugliness  so  that  Horace  says  now  the 
hill  is  healthy,  its  sunny  embankment  is  a  favorite  prom- 
enade and  here  Maecenas'  palace  is  the  happy  resort 
of  the  literary  men  who  enjoy  his  favor.  Horace  de- 
scribed to  the  envious  Bore,  who  longed  to  be  num- 
bered in  so  choice  a  circle,  how  free  the  palace  was 
from  the  petty  rivalries  and  the  jealousies  of  both  in- 
tellectual and  moneyed  snobbishness  (Sat.  1,  9,  48-52) 


164  Italy  Old  and  New 

and  in  a  letter  to  Maecenas  himself  (Ep.  1,  7)  the  poet 
proved  how  free  Maecenas  left  the  men  he  patronized, 
for  Horace,  in  spite  of  his  indebtedness  to  his  great 
patron,  most  of  all  for  his  peerless  Sabine  farm,  felt 
free  to  refuse  his  urgent  invitation  to  hurry  back  to 
Rome  and  enliven  the  company  on  the  Esquiline.  It  is 
because  of  Horace's  varied  and  devoted  pictures  of  his 
patron  that  one  longs  to  identify  something  on  the  Es- 
quiline with  Maecenas'  name  and  finds  a  certain  satis- 
faction in  the  so-called  Auditorium  Maecenatis  on  the 
Via  Merulana  in  the  probable  quarter  of  the  old  Ne- 
cropolis, and  of  Maecenas'  gardens.  In  this  long  hall 
of  the  early  empire,  the  imagination  is  caught  by  the 
miniature  theater  at  one  end,  a  tiny  semi-circle  with 
seven  rows  of  elevated  seats  and  one  would  like  to 
think  that  here  perhaps  Maecenas  with  Vergil,  Varius 
and  his  other  literary  friends  sat  to  listen  to  Horace's 
readings  of  his  latest  ode.  But  alas  !  the  archaeologists 
will  have  it  that  the  room  is  probably  not  an  auditorium 
at  all,  but  a  walled  garden  and  no  evidence  proves  that 
it  belonged  to  Maecenas. 

Horace  only  refers  to  the  hill  of  Quirinus  as  very  in- 
conveniently distant  from  the  Aventine  for  those  who 
had  to  make  calls  in  both  places  (Ep.  2,  2,  68-9)  and 
so  too  he  barely  mentions  the  Mons  Vaticanus  (C.  1, 
20,  7-8),  then  a  name  synonymous  with  all  the  Jani- 
culum  ridge  and  only  later  bequeathed  to  the  level  dis- 
trict between  ridge  and  river  where  St.  Peter's  now 
stands. 

The  river  Tiber  has  its  associations  with  Horace 
and  here  my  eyes  felt  certain  that  they  had  rested  on 
an  inscription  which  he  saw,  for  the  Pons  Fabricius  to 
which  he  refers  (Sat.  2,  3,  36)  still  bears  over  its  arches 
the  inscription  that  the  bridge  was  built  by  L.  Fabricius 


The  Rome  That  Horace  Knew    165 

who  was  curator  viarum  in  62  B.  C.  and  that  it  was 
restored  by  M.  Lollius  and  Q.  Lepidus  (of  21  B.  C). 
Horace  pictures  for  us  the  tawny  Tiber  in  flood,  vio- 
lently thrown  back  from  the  Etruscan  shore  and  rising 
even  to  touch  the  sacred  temple  of  Vesta.  Here  still 
in  the  yellow  river,  the  youths  of  Rome  swim  as  the  old 
lawyer  Trebatius  advised  Horace  to  do  for  sleepless- 
ness (Sat.  2,  1,  8-9;  C.  1,  8,  8;  C.  3,  12,  7).  Still 
stately  villas  tower  up  over  the  yellow  stream  (C.  2,  3, 
18)  and  across  the  river  the  magnificent  park  of  the 
Janiculum,  where  old  ilexes  frame  enchanting  vistas  of 
Rome,  reminds  us  of  Horace's  allusion  to  Caesar's  gar- 
dens across  the  Tiber  (Sat.  1,9,  18). 

The  Campus  Martius  was  to  Horace  the  great  pub- 
lic playground  of  Rome.  The  young  athlete  whom  love 
for  Lydia  ruined  used  to  be  able  to  stand  the  dust  and 
the  sun  of  the  bright  Campus,  Horace  reflects  (C.  1, 
8,  3-4),  but  as  for  himself,  the  field  is  so  sunny  that  he 
has  to  abandon  the  game  of  ball  there  at  midday  and 
seek  the  bath's  shelter  (Sat.  1,  6,  126).  Today  amid 
the  congested  business  districts  of  the  old  Campus 
Martius  one  object  will  recall  Horace's  time,  the  in- 
scription across  the  face  of  the  Pantheon 

M.  AGRIPPA  L.  F.   COS.  TERTIUM  FECIT, 

the  record  that  Augustus'  great  general  built  the  orig- 
inal temple,  and  although  the  building  standing  is  of 
Hadrian's  time,  this  inscription  may  be  the  original  one 
of  Agrippa's  building  of  27  B.  C,  which  Horace  must 
have  seen. 

I  never  walk  through  the  Roman  forum  without 
thinking  of  how  Horace  used  to  stroll  about  there  at 
dusk  (Sat.  1,  6,  114)   and  of  his  most  famous  walk 


166  Italy  Old  and  New 

there  when  his  literary  meditations  were  rudely  inter- 
rupted by  the  most  notorious  of  Bores  and  he  tried  un- 
successfully to  escape  his  distasteful  companion  as  they 
halted  a  moment  near  Vesta's  temple.  Take  Sat.  1,  9 
with  you  and  read  it  while  you  sit  in  sight  of  the  round 
foundation  of  Vesta's  shrine  with  your  feet  on  the  old 
paving  stones  of  the  Sacra  Via,  for  there  is  no  more 
vivid  and  humorous  character-sketch  left  us  from  the 
old  life  of  the  forum  and  no  satire  more  thoroughly 
Horatian. 

Two  other  pictures  of  human  life  on  the  Sacra  via 
Horace  gives,  one  a  tiny  vignette  of  the  nouveau  rtche 
who  swaggering  along  in  a  toga  far  too  ample  aroused 
the  indignant  criticism  of  the  passers-by  (Ep.  4,  5-10)  ; 
the  other  a  hint  of  the  great  triumphal  processions  that 
once  swept  along  the  Sacra  Via  up  to  the  Capitol  (Ep. 
7,  7-8).  As  I  walk  from  the  Temple  of  Vesta  west- 
ward along  the  Sacra  Via,  I  wish  that  the  Puteal 
Libonis  could  be  located  since  here  somewhere  near  the 
Temple  of  Castor  must  have  stood  that  sacred  curb 
which  we  know  from  a  marble  relief  in  the  Lateran 
and  from  Libo's  coin  (Carter-Hulsen,  Rom.  For.  p. 
160),  but  here  I  have  only  the  amusing  memory  of 
Horace's  declaration  that  he  will  give  up  the  Forum 
and  the  Puteal  of  Libo  (with  all  their  legal  business) 
to  those  who  do  not  drink  wine,  but  for  his  part  as  a 
bard  he  believes  that  no  poems  can  give  pleasure  long 
or  indeed  live  which  are  written  by  drinkers  of  water 
(Ep.  1,  19,  1-9).  The  Forum  pleased  Horace  as  a 
promenade,  but  he  would  have  none  of  it  as  a  place  of 
labor  and  was  only  too  thankful  that  he  could  go  to 
sleep  at  night  not  anxious  because  the  next  morning  he 
must  be  up  betimes  to  call  on  Marsyas  whose  statue 
stood  near  the  Praetor's  tribunal  where  all  law  business 


The  Rome  That  Horace  Knew    167 

went  on  (Sat.  1,  6,  120).  In  front  of  the  column  of 
Phocas  are  traces  of  a  praetor's  inscription  (L. 
NAEVIUS)  which  helps  identify  the  location  of  the 
Tribunal,  but  today  the  only  representation  of  Marsyas 
in  the  Forum  is  on  those  marble  balustrades  of  Trajan's 
time  where  he  stands  under  fig-tree,  wine-skin  on 
shoulder.  Horace  speaks  too  of  the  Rostra  from 
which  chill  rumor  starts  (Sat.  2,  6,  50)  and  it  is  some- 
thing to  know  that  on  the  very  site  of  the  high  long 
platform  across  the  north  end  of  the  Forum  stood  the 
Augustan  rostra,  whatever  portions  of  this  present 
structure  are  to  be  dated  in  the  Augustan  epoch.  In 
this  part  of  the  Forum  near  the  Senate  House  and  at 
the  foot  of  the  street  called  Argiletum  stood  the  tiny 
temple  of  the  two-faced  god,  Janus, — guardian  of 
peace,  Horace  calls  him  (Ep.  2,  1,  155),  whose  doors 
were  open  in  time  of  peace  and  closed  in  periods  of 
war.  Because  the  temple  was  of  bronze  and  very  small, 
all  trace  of  it  has  disappeared. 

We  would  know  that  Honace  frequented  the  Circus 
Maximus  even  if  he  did  not  speak  of  wandering  around 
the  tricky  Circus  (Sat.  1,  6,  113)  because  his  simile 
from  the  race-course  is  so  vivid.  For  the  avaricious 
man  hastening  on  after  wealth  a  richer  man  always 
stands  in  his  way,  just  as,  when  the  chariot  starts  in  the 
race,  the  charioteer  presses  on  after  the  horses  that  are 
passing  his,  despising  the  rival  he  has  out-distanced  as 
if  he  were  coming  in  among  the  last  (Sat.  1,1,  113-6). 
The  Circus  Maximus  that  Horace  knew,  the  huge  oval 
rebuilt  by  Caesar  and  Octavianus,  has  vanished,  for  the 
valley  of  the  Circus,  between  Aventine  and  Palatine,  is 
now  occupied  by  a  Hebrew  cemetery  and  a  great  fac- 
tory, but  the  obelisk  which  Augustus  placed  on  the  cen- 
tral platform  of  the  Circus  now  stands  in  the  Piazza 


168  Italy  Old  and  New 

del  Popolo,  a  symbol  of  the  building's  past  magnifi- 
cence. 

Other  haunts  of  Horace  where  he  sauntered  in  his 
walks  were  the  porticoes  of  Rome  and  we  can  picture 
him  strolling  slowly  under  those  arcades,  philosophiz- 
ing to  himself  about  his  own  life,  and  saying:  "This  is 
the  more  excellent  way.  If  I  do  so,  I  will  live  more 
nobly"  (Sat.  1,  4,  133-4).  The  porticus  of  Agrippa  to 
which  he  refers  (Ep.  1,  6,  26),  the  one,  I  suppose,  with 
the  exploits  of  the  Argonauts  painted  on  the  walls,  is 
identified  by  some  archaeologists  with  the  Basilica  Nep- 
tuni,  restored  by  Hadrian,  now  a  part  of  the  Borsa  of 
Rome.  But  many  would  make  these  beautiful  Corin- 
thian columns  part  of  the  temple  to  the  deified  Hadrian 
built  by  Antoninus  Pius  and  if  we  wish  to  visualize  an 
Augustan  porticus,  we  will  do  better  to  see  the  frag- 
ment of  the  Porticus  Octaviae  which  shows  the  main 
entrance  though  perhaps  of  a  later  time. 

The  streets  of  Rome  Horace  does  not  often  name 
for  us  though  he  refers  to  the  Carinae  (Ep.  1,  7,  48), 
the  Subura  (Epode  5,  55),  and  to  certain  of  the  great 
roads  going  out  from  Rome,  the  Via  Tiburs  (Sat.  1,  6, 
108),theViaAppia  (Sat.  1,  5,  Ep.  1,  6,  26,  Ep.  1,  18, 
20).  But  the  life  of  the  streets  he  describes  vividly. 
His  friend  Aristius  Fuscus  may  prefer  to  be  down  in 
the  city,  but  Horace  praises  far  more  the  country  with 
its  little  streams,  its  moss-covered  rocks,  and  its  woods 
(Ep.  1,  10,  6-7).  Why,  when  he  is  dragged  off  to 
Rome  on  business,  no  matter  how  bad  the  weather  is, 
he  has  to  go  and  struggle  through  the  crowds  on  the 
street,  elbowing  the  slow,  and  his  only  satisfaction  is 
when  some  jealous  fellow  calls  out:  "What  are  you  do- 
ing, madman?  Would  you  push  aside  everybody  in 
your  way  if  you're  bent  on  hurrying  to  Maecenas?" 


The  Rome  That  Horace  Knew    169 

Such  envy  pursues  the  great  man's  friend  whether 
Maecenas  is  just  giving  Horace  a  lift  in  his  carriage, 
and  passing  the  time  of  day,  or  whether  they  are  watch- 
ing some  celebration  together  or  exercising  together  on 
the  Campus  Martius  (Sat.  2,  6,  23-49),  and  Horace 
admits  good-humoredly  his  own  naive  satisfaction  and 
how  when  a  late  dinner  invitation  to  the  Esquiline  ar- 
rives, he  bawls  for  his  lantern  and  rushes  off,  neglecting 
his  own  callers  (Sat.  2,  7,  32-37).  But  even  for  his 
pleasure  and  pride  in  Maecenas'  society,  the  poet  finds 
the  city  no  place  for  writing.  "You  may  say  there  are 
open  squares  so  that  nothing  hinders  thought.  A  hot- 
headed contractor  rushes  on  with  his  mules  and  his  por- 
ters; a  derrick,  is  raising  now  a  stone,  now  a  mighty 
beam;  here  runs  a  mad  dog,  there  rushes  a  muddy  sow. 
Go  to  now  and  think  out  your  musical  verses.  No,  the 
whole  band  of  writers  avoids  the  city  and  praises  the 
woods"  (Ep.  2,  2,  70-75). 

Yet  if  you  have  a  good  deal  of  the  Bohemian  in  you 
and  can  give  yourself  up  to  being  entertained,  the  city 
streets  are  very  diverting.  Think  of  the  delight  the  old 
lawyer  Philippus  received  from  his  conversation  with 
Vulteius  Menas,  that  hawker  of  cheap  wares!  (Ep. 
1,  7).  Horace  used  to  poke  about  often  on  foot  alone 
(at  least  in  his  early  days  as  a  quaestor's  clerk)  inquire 
at  the  market  the  price  of  cabbages,  visit  the  fortune- 
tellers, then  carry  home  from  the  delicatessen  shops  a 
little  supper  of  leeks,  beans  and  a  cake  to  enjoy  with  his 
wine  (Sat.  1,  6,  111-6).  Probably  during  his  strolls 
he  would  go  to  the  book-shops  to  look  at  the  latest  no- 
tices of  new  books  posted  on  the  columns,  though  for 
his  part  he  could  not  stand  having  his  books  so  adver- 
tised and  thumbed  by  the  hot  hands  of  the  common 
crowd  (Sat.  1,  4,  71-2).    That  is  really  as  disgusting 


170  Italy  Old  and  New 

to  a  writer  of  fine  sensibilities  as  the  thought  of  reading 
his  own  poems  in  the  Forum  or  the  public  baths  to  the 
boredom  of  reluctant  hearers,  as  certain  writers  have 
been  known  to  do  (Sat.  1,  4,  73-6).  There  are  many 
chances  of  being  bored  in  the  city,  but  with  some 
shrewdness  you  can  avoid  banquets  given  to  make  you 
listen  to  the  host's  second-rate  writings  (Ep.  1,  19,  38) 
and  even  if  you  are  a  great  patron,  you  can  slip  out  of 
your  house  by  a  side-door  and  be  off  to  a  dinner-party 
while  your  client  waits  for  you  in  the  atrium  (Ep.  1,5, 
30-1). 

Dinner-parties  are  very  good  fun,  under  almost  any 
conditions  if  you  have  a  sense  of  humor.  Did  you  ever 
hear  Fundanius  tell  about  that  affair  Nasidienus  Rufus 
gave  to  Maecenas?  Why,  he  even  put  in  a  place  near 
the  guest  of  honor  a  buffoon  who  had  a  trick  of  swal- 
lowing cheese-cakes  whole.  All  Nasidienus  talked 
about  was  the  food,  and  finally  the  tapestries  on  the 
ceiling  fell  down  with  a  cloud  of  dust  on  the  platter. 
You  should  have  heard  Balatro's  wit  in  consoling  the 
host!  Fundanius  said  he  never  had  a  better  time  in 
his  life  (Sat.  2,  8). 

So  Horace  turns  the  light  of  his  satire  on  the  diver- 
sions of  the  Romans,  now  picturing  a  banquet,  then 
giving  a  glimpse  of  the  races,  or  of  a  gladiatorial  com- 
bat, or  of  the  theater,  and  of  the  last  he  has  a  good 
deal  to  say,  from  his  natural  literary  interest.  Admir- 
ing the  dramatic  art  so  much  that  he  considers  the  play- 
wright a  magician  who  can  transport  him  now  to 
Thebes,  now  to  Athens,  and  can  always  move  his  feel- 
ings, he  is  disheartened  by  the  over-emphasis  on  spec- 
tacular production, — that  playing  to  the  galleries 
which  brings  on  the  stage  squadrons  of  cavalry  and  in- 
fantry, war-chariots,  ships,  captives,  magnificent  cos- 


The  Rome  That  Horace  Knew    171 

tumes,  until  the  applause  over  a  beautiful  violet  robe 
drowns  the  actor's  words  (Ep.  2,  187-213). 

Horace,  the  bachelor,  gives  us  scant  idea  of  home 
life  in  the  city.  A  reference  to  marriage  suggests  that 
his  point  of  view  was  thoroughly  Roman:  "One  seeks 
a  blessed  wife  to  have  children"  (Ep.  1,  2,  44-5). 
And  his  picture  of  one  great  lady,  Maecenas'  wife, 
Terentia  (C.  2,  12),  portrays  her  beauty  and  accom- 
plishments, but  above  all  her  coquetry  so  that  she  re- 
sembles in  her  attitude  those  lights-of-love  who  flit  so 
charmingly  across  the  odes.  With  country  wives  we 
shall  find  that  he  does  better  and  his  snapshots  of  chil- 
dren are  delightful.  You  can  see  a  group  of  them  play- 
ing their  games  and  counting  out,  chanting:  "You'll  be 
king  if  you  act  nobly"  (Ep.  1,  1,  59-60),  and  you  can 
see  the  little  slowpoke  in  school,  struggling  with  mental 
arithmetic.  "  'Let  the  son  of  Albius  recite.  Subtract 
one-twelfth  from  five-twelfths,  what  remains?  You 
ought  to  have  replied  at  once.'  'A  third.'  'Good. 
You  can  manage  your  property.  Add  one-twelfth. 
What  is  the  result?'    'A  half.'" 

The  growing  boy  too  he  understands  even  when  love 
ruins  his  athletics  (C.  1,  8),  and  most  delightful  is  the 
picture  of  himself  when  his  father  took  him,  only  a  lad, 
to  Rome  to  have  the  education  which  any  knight  or 
senator  would  give  his  son,  furnished  him  with  proper 
clothing  and  escort  of  slaves,  then  went  himself  with 
him  to  school,  to  keep  him  chaste  amid  city  temptations 
(Sat.  1,6,76-84). 

It  was  from  so  wise  a  father  that  Horace  first  learned 
to  observe  the  people  they  passed  and  to  form  his  own 
standards  of  life  from  the  successes  and  the  mistakes  of 
others  (Sat.  1,4).  But  the  tolerant  humor  with  which 
he  viewed  the  idiosyncrasies  of  mankind  must  have  been 


172  Italy  Old  and  New 

the  result  of  long  experience  with  many  types  of  men. 
Satires  and  epistles  are  full  of  miniature  portraits 
painted  with  master  art. 

There  is  the  literal  minded  old  lawyer,  Trebatius, 
who  takes  Horace  so  seriously  when  he  declares  that 
he  has  to  write  satire  because  he  can't  sleep  and  advises 
him  so  concisely  to  swim  the  Tiber  three  times  and  drink 
well  before  retiring  (Sat.  2,  1).  As  much  in  character 
is  the  grandiloquent  general  with  his  eloquent  exhorta- 
tion to  his  soldier  to  storm  a  fort,  and  the  matter-of- 
fact  country  boy's  reply  (so  in  the  tone  of  Shaw's 
"O'Flaherty,  V.C.").  Before  when  he  had  been 
robbed  in  the  night,  he  had  become  a  wild  wolf  and 
had  taken  a  fortified  position  that  seemed  impregnable 
so  that  he  was  already  a  hero,  but  having  been  well 
rewarded,  he  replied  now  to  the  praetor:  uThe  man 
who'll  be  afther  goin'  where  ye  wishe  is  I'm  thinkin' 
the  one  who's  jist  lost  his  money-belt"  (Ep.  2,  2, 
26-40). 

There  are  little  flings  at  other  professional  men, 
the  doctor,  Antonius  Musa,  with  his  hobby  for  the 
cold-bath  cure  (Ep.  1,  15,  2-9)  and  at  the  lecturers  to 
ladies'  clubs  (or  to  musical  circles!),  Demetrius  and 
Tigellius  who  went  droning  on  in  the  midst  of  the  arm- 
chairs of  their  female  hearers  (Sat.  1,  10,  90-92). 
Lucullus'  wealth  is  done  up  in  a  neat  little  tale.  "When 
he  was  asked,  the  story  goes,  if  he  could  lend  a  hundred 
robes  for  a  dramatic  performance,  he  replied:  'How 
can  I  furnish  so  many?  Still  I'll  make  inquiries  and 
send  as  many  as  I  have.'  A  little  after,  he  wrote  that 
he  had  five  thousand  robes  at  home;  his  friend  could 
take  part  or  all"  (Ep.  1,6,40-1). 

Immediately  after  that  satire  on  the  folly  of  wealth 
with  its  motto  of  nil  admirari  follows  the  frank  letter 


The  Rome  That  Horace  Knew    173 

to  Maecenas  on  self-dependence  with  its  emphatic 
climax,  "It  is  right  that  each  man  measure  himself  with 
his  own  foot-rule,"  and  in  this  Horace  gives  a  sketch 
of  a  Contented  Poor  Man,  Vulteius  Menas,  who  man- 
aged his  little  life  in  the  city  so  satisfactorily  until 
Philippus  for  his  own  amusement  tried  the  unsuccessful 
experiment  of  turning  him  into  a  farmer.  Vulteius' 
description  of  himself  is  multum  in  parvo:  "an  auc- 
tioneer of  small  means,  but  out  of  debt,  with  a  reputa- 
tion for  working  and  loafing,  for  getting  and  spending, 
happy  in  a  few  friends,  a  home  of  my  own,  enjoying 
public  fetes,  and  the  Campus  after  the  day's  work  is 
over"  (Ep.  1,7,  55-9). 

Other  men  are  painted  with  fewer  strokes.  Gargilius 
who  covets  the  reputation  of  a  great  hunter  has  his 
slaves  early  in  the  morning  cross  the  crowded  forum 
with  the  nets  and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  the  chase  in 
order  that,  with  all  the  people  watching,  one  mule  may 
carry  in  the  boar — which  he  had  bought!  (Ep.  1,  6, 
58-61).  That  old  sport,  Volanerius,  was  so  confirmed 
a  gambler  that  when  the  gout  he  deserved  crippled  his 
hands,  he  hired  for  regular  wages  a  person  to  pick  up 
the  dice  for  him  and  drop  them  into  the  box  (Sat.  2,  7, 
15-18).  Avidienus  was  so  stingy  that  not  only  would 
he  use  poor  oil  for  his  salad,  but  even  on  birthdays  and 
other  celebrations  he  would  mix  his  salad-dressing, 
using  more  vinegar  than  oil  (Sat.  2,  2,  55-62).  Tillius 
was  in  equally  bad  form  from  his  stinginess,  for  when 
he  was  praetor  instead  of  keeping  up  some  style,  when 
he  went  out  to  Tibur,  he'd  have  his  slaves  carry  along 
a  picnic-lunch  for  him  (Sat.  1,  6,  107-9).  Of  course, 
these  men  were  at  least  consistent  in  their  point  of 
view  and  vacillation  has  its  disadvantages.  Think  of 
Priscus!     Sometimes  he  wore  three  rings,  sometimes 


174  Italy  Old  and  New 

his  left  hand  was  unadorned.  He  lived  so  fitfully  that 
he  would  change  his  tunic  every  hour,  and  he'd  rush 
suddenly  from  a  palace  to  a  hovel  from  which  a  freed- 
man  of  the  better  sort  would  hardly  issue  without  being 
disgraced.  Now  he  preferred  to  live  as  an  adulterer 
at  Rome,  now  as  a  philosopher  at  Athens  (Sat.  2,  7, 
8-14). 

The  artistic  temperament  is  just  as  whimsical  and 
Horace's  picture  of  one,  though  a  miniature,  rivals  Bar- 
rie's  "Sentimental  Tommy."  "This  is  a  fault  common 
to  all  singers  that  they  never  induce  their  souls  to  sing 
on  request  for  their  friends,  but  if  they  are  not  urged, 
they  never  leave  off.  The  famous  Sardinian  Tigellius 
had  that  fault.  Caesar,  who  could  compel  him,  if  he 
begged  in  the  name  of  his  father's  friendship  and  his 
own,  would  gain  no  favor.  .  .  .  There  was  nothing 
consistent  about  the  fellow.  Often  he  ran  like  a  man 
fleeing  an  enemy;  often  he  walked  with  as  stately  a 
tread  as  one  carrying  the  mystic  symbols  of  Juno. 
Often  he  had  two  hundred  slaves,  often  ten.  Now  his 
talk  was  all  grandiloquent,  of  kings  and  tetrarchs.  Now 
he'd  say  'May  I  have  only  a  three-legged  table  and  a 
shell  of  pure  salt  and  a  toga,  no  matter  how  coarse, 
to  ward  off  the  cold.'  If  you  gave  to  this  humble  per- 
son, contented  with  little,  100,000  sesterces,  in  five  days 
there  was  nothing  in  his  purse.  He'd  sit  up  all  night 
and  snore  all  day.  Never  was  anyone  so  inconsistent" 
(Sat.  1,  3,  1-19). 

With  so  keen  and  amused  an  eye  did  Horace  observe 
his  fellow-citizens  and  so  well  did  he  know  his  Rome 
that  we  are  fain  to  point  the  finger  at  an  inconsistency 
equal  to  Tigellius'  when  he  writes  to  his  friend  Aristius 
Fuscus:  "I,  lover  of  the  country,  send  greetings  to 
Fuscus,  lover  of  the  city,  for  we  twain  are  to  be  sure 


The  Rome  That  Horace  Knew    175 

very  different  in  this  one  particular  but  in  all  else  almost 
twins  with  but  one  thought  .  .  .  nodding  in  time  like 
old  familiar  doves.  You  guard  the  nest,  I  praise 
the  beloved  country's  rivulets  and  moss-grown  rocks 
and  wood."  But  Horace  always  slyly  disarms  criticism 
by  anticipating  it  and  already  has  let  his  slave  Davus 
with  the  freedom  of  the  Saturnalia  declare:  "At  Rome 
you  desire  the  country,  rusticated  you  fickly  extol  the 
absent  city  to  the  stars"  (Sat.  2,  7,  28-29) .  And  again 
the  poet  himself  admits :  "I  veer  like  a  wind,  at  Rome 
loving  Tibur,  at  Tibur,  Rome"  (Ep.  1,  8,  12).  So  his 
vivid  reactions  to  nature  and  to  country  people  give  us 
opportunity  to  see  through  his  eyes  not  only  the  city, 
but  the  country  near.  Just  as  Horace  packed  up  Plato 
and  Menander  to  carry  with  him  when  he  was  off  to 
the  country,  I  found  that  I  always  wanted  my  small 
blue  Horace  when  I  went  off  on  day-trips  about  Rome. 
I  was  never  fortunate  enough  to  see  Soracte  stand- 
ing white  with  deep  snow,  but  many  a  time  as  I  looked 
across  the  plain  north  of  Rome,  Horace's  line 

Vides  ut  alta  stet  nive  candidum 
Soracte 

came  to  mind  with  Byron's  more  aptly  descriptive 
phrase 

"A  long  low  wave  about  to  break." 

For  Soracte  rises,  wave  or  island,  from  the  sea  of  the 
Campagna,  a  ridge  with  three  crests,  isolated,  majestic, 
and  its  beauty  as  well  as  its  famous  name  calls. 

At  Gabii  too,  I  thought  of  Horace  and  it  was  strange 
to  find  as  we  walked  across  the  Campagna  from  Pan- 
tano  towards  Castiglione  that  Gabii  is  more  deserted 
than  Horace  dubbed  it  (Ep.  1,  1 1,  7) ,  no  slaves  to  sell 


176  Italy  Old  and  New 

now  (Ep.  2,  2,  3) ,  no  possibility  of  treaties  with  knights 
(Ep.  2,  1,  25)  or  refuge  for  treacherous  Sextus  Tar- 
quinius,  only  the  empty  basin  of  a  lake,  puzzling  frag- 
ments of  city  walls,  traces  of  a  long,  winding  street 
with  cart-ruts  and  bases  of  monuments,  the  open  and 
broken  cella  of  a  great  temple.  But  the  color  of  the 
temple-walls  is  a  rich  golden-brown  and  we  saw  it  in 
radiant  sunshine,  standing  above  the  bright  green  of 
young  grain  with  the  Sabine  hills  and  Soracte  looming 
blue  in  the  distance.  Not  altogether  deserted  was 
Gabii,  for  as  we  sat  eating  our  lunch,  in  the  lea  of  the 
wall  of  Juno's  temple,  a  flock  of  sheep  strayed  by  with 
great  white  dog  and  shepherd. 

The  Campagna  for  Horace  too  must  have  held  much 
the  same  aspect,  the  wide  level  stretches,  the  back- 
ground of  violet  mountains  with  Monte  Cavo's  wooded 
crest.  He  too  watched  winter  paint  the  snow  upon  the 
Albans  (Ep.  1,  7,  10),  wratched  the  victim  growing  up 
in  Alban  pastures  (C.  3,  23,  11)  and  near  the  ex- 
quisite Alban  lakes  saw  fitting  place  for  shrine  to  the 
goddess  of  one's  devotion  (C.  4,  1,  19-20).  When  we 
went  out  to  the  lakes  from  great  Rome,  Ariccia  with 
its  modest  inn  received  us  too  as  it  did  Horace  (Sat. 
1,  5,  1-2).  The  Ariccia  of  today  centers  in  the  Piazza 
with  Bernini's  Palace  and  church  high  above  the  site 
of  the  old  town  and  the  ravine  which  the  long  aqueduct 
crosses  with  its  three  rows  of  arches.  We  followed  the 
road  down  past  groups  of  contadini  and  hunting  for 
Roman  ruins  found  in  a  giardino  remains  of  great 
arches  and  a  piece  of  wall  which  a  boy  told  us  was  the 
famous  temple.  Here  too  we  came  upon  a  piece  of  the 
pavement  of  the  old  road,  perhaps  the  very  stones  over 
which  Horace  jogged  slowly  on  his  journey  to  Brun- 
disium.     Somewhere  near  here  was  discovered  the  co- 


The  Rome  That  Horace  Knew    177 

lossal  statue  of  a  goddess,  which  is  now  in  the  National 
Museum  at  Rome.  I  have  seen  her  magnificent  beauty 
but  may  not  describe  it  until  the  Italian  archaeologists 
have  published  their  priceless  treasure. 

Tusculum  takes  another  day  though  its  modern  de- 
scendant, Frascati,  looks  very  near  from  Rome,  a  white 
city  on  a  blue  mountain  shining  just  as  Horace  says  the 
old  villas  shone  in  lofty  Tusculum  (Ep.  1,  29-30). 
Frascati  with  all  its  renaissance  villas  has  its  own  charm, 
but  more  exquisite  in  its  beautiful  loneliness  is  ancient 
Tusculum  above, — the  old  road,  lined  with  scattered 
tombs,  winding  up  to  the  green  glade  of  the  forum, 
through  which  are  seen  the  white  marble  seats  of  the 
perfect  little  theater  on  the  hillside. 

To  another  hill  town  near  Rome  Horace  went,  cool 
Praeneste  (C.  3,  4,  22-3)  and  there  he  read  over  his 
Homer  (Ep.  1,  2,  2)  who  taught  him  more  clearly  than 
the  philosophers  lessons  of  life, — what  is  beautiful, 
what  is  base,  what  is  wise.  One  could  now  read  peace- 
fully both  Homer  and  Horace  on  the  top  of  the  old 
Acropolis  hill  above  the  town,  for  its  wind-swept  pas- 
tures are  cool  and  uninhabited,  and  the  view  is  mag- 
nificent between  Alban  and  Volscian  mountains  straight 
to  the  sea.  Such  a  commanding  control  of  a  roadway 
gave  Praeneste  her  commercial  and  military  power  and 
the  fame  of  her  oracle  of  Fortune  drew  many  visitors. 
So  great  was  the  temple  of  Fortune  that  most  of  the 
modern  town  of  Palestrina  is  built  in  its  ruins  and  one 
sees  still  strangely  incorporate  in  the  Villa  Barberini 
apse  of  temple,  fine  old  mosaic  floors,  rooms  where 
oracles  were  received  and  delivered. 

Horace  must  have  seen  the  great  prehistoric  wall  of 
Praeneste  still  outlined  magnificently  down  the  hill. 
He  does  not  speak  of  consulting  the  famous  oracle,  but 


178  Italy  Old  and  New 

he  wrote  an  ode  to  the  Goddess  of  Fortune  worshipped 
at  Antium  (C.  1,  3S)  and  we  thought  of  him  no  less 
than  of  Cicero  when  we  went  out  for  a  day  at  Anzio  by 
the  sea.  Perhaps  Horace  saw  near  Anzio  at  Astura 
Cicero's  villa  whose  foundations  now  lie  clearly  visible 
under  the  water  by  the  shore.  I  wonder  if  his  eyes 
rested  on  the  Maid  of  Anzio,  that  beautiful  statue 
found  in  niche  of  wall  one  day  uncovered  here  by 
the  sea,  now  one  of  the  treasures  of  the  National  Mu- 
seum in  Rome.  If,  as  Parabeni,  the  Director  of  the 
Museum,  thinks,  she  was  a  humble  girl  serving  as 
priestess  in  the  temple,  her  beauty  has  at  least  some 
stray  connection  with  Horace's  ode  to  the  goddess  who 
reigns  at  Antium. 

I  thought  of  Horace  at  Soracte,  Veii,  Gabii,  Prae- 
neste,  Antium  and  by  the  Alban  hills  and  lakes,  but  no 
part  of  the  country  near  Rome  is  so  peculiarly  his  as 
the  valley  of  the  Anio  in  the  Sabine  hills,  and  his  friends 
inevitably  go  out  the  Via  Tiburtina  in  quest  of  that 
farm  to  which  he  fled  as  to  a  citadel  far  from  the 

fumum  et  opes  strepitumque  Romae. 

The  road  crosses  the  rushing  Anio  and  looks  to  the 
Sabine  mountains:  so  much  is  clear,  but  the  puzzle  of 
the  site  of  Horace's  villa  are  many.  In  fact  we  query: 
did  the  poet  have  one  villa  or  two  in  these  hills?  We 
know  from  his  own  words  how  he  loved  care-fr^e,  well- 
watered  Tibur  (Tivoli)  on  the  hillside,  the  rushing 
Anio,  the  grove  of  Tiburnus,  the  orchards  watered  by 
fast-flowing  streams;  how  he  gathered  thyme  for  the 
honey  of  his  poetry  near  the  groves  and  the  banks  of 
well-watered  Tibur,  for  the  waters  which  flow  by  fertile 
Tibur  and  the  thick-leaved  groves  make  a  man  famous 


The  Rome  That  Horace  Knew    179 

for  Aeolian  song;  how  finally  he  prayed  that  Tibur 
founded  by  an  Argive  colonist  might  be  the  home  of  his 
old  age.  All  this  suggests  that  at  times  he  lived  and 
wrote  near  Tibur.  Moreover  Suetonius'  life  of  the 
poet  seems  to  confirm  this  inference  :  "He  lived  often  in 
the  retreat  of  his  farm,  Sabine*  or  Tiburtine,  and  his 
house  is  shown  near  the  grove  of  Tiburnus."  This  grove 
of  Tiburnus,  familiar  to  both  Horace  and  Vergil  ( Aen. 
7,  81-3),  may  have  been  across  the  Anio  from  Tivoli 
on  the  hillside  where  have  been  found  ruins  of  several 
Roman  villas,  some  facing  the  city  and  the  falls,  like 
that  attributed  to  Catullus,  and  others  looking  across 
the  campagna  to  Rome  like  the  one  of  Quintilius  Varus 
which  stood  on  that  wide  artificial  terrace  eight  hun- 
dred feet  above  the  sea  where  now  gnarled  olive-trees 
frame  wonderful  views.  The  ruins  now  believed  by 
Mr.  Hallam  and  Mr.  Thomas  Ashby  to  belong  to  a 
villa  of  Horace  are  in  the  grounds  under  the  Frances- 
can  monastery  and  church  of  Sant'  Antonio,  on  a  ter- 
raced hill  looking  across  the  ravine  to  the  great  white 
waterfall.  At  the  upper  level  in  the  monastery  itself 
there  are  remains  of  the  villa,  walls  of  opus  reticulatum, 
mosaic  pavement  and  at  a  lower  level  there  is  a  group 
of  three  rooms,  the  central  one  a  large  nymphaeum, 
once  adorned  on  the  sides  with  rows  of  columns.  Still 
lower  on  the  hill  are  substructures  with  arched  and  tri- 
angular niches  apparently  built  to  support  a  terrace  for 
a  garden.  All  these  remains  are  not  later  than  the 
Augustan  age;  the  location  is  within  hearing  distance 
of  the  Anio's  waters;  the  beauty  is  more  endearing  than 
that  of  hardy  Lacedaemon  and  if  Horace  did  have  a 
villa  at  Tibur  where  he  wished  to  write  and  to  spend 
his  old  age,  as  I  now  am  inclined  to  think  he  did,  this 
traditional  site  is  a  very  probable  one. 


180  Italy  Old  and  New 

But  tradition  claims  also  another  locality  for  an 
Horatian  farm,  Sabine  as  well  as  Tiburtine,  and  we 
must  go  on  from  Tibur  along  the  Via  Valeria  to  the 
second  villa  site,  noting  Horace's  own  landmarks  by 
the  way.  Six  and  three-quarters  miles  beyond  is  the 
little  town  of  Vicovaro,  the  Varia  whither  Horace  says 
his  five  peasant  farmers  used  to  go  (Ep.  1,  14,  1-3). 
Of  old  Varia  there  remains  only  a  part  of  the  town 
wall  and  a  portico  of  ancient  columns  in  a  little  church, 
but  these  add  their  charm  to  the  town  which  has  a 
greater  treasure  in  its  tiny  octagonal  church  of  the  fif- 
teenth century. 

Beyond  Vicovaro  we  turn  up  the  valley  of  the  tiny 
river  Licenza,  Horace's  Digentia,  and  presently  see  on 
a  ridge  across  Horace's  Mandela  stretching  out  long 
and  picturesque  with  its  towers  (Ep.  1,18,  104-5).  A 
little  further  on  a  road  turns  to  the  left  where  there  are 
two  stone  bridges  over  a  little  stream  and  zigzags  up 
to  Rocca  Giovane,  a  tiny  town  with  the  gray  and  red 
castle  of  the  Marchese  crowning  precipitous  crags.  I 
ascended  for  the  sake  of  Horace's  tenth  epistle  of  Book 
One,  the  line  in  which  he  tells  Fuscus  he  is  writing  be- 
hind the  crumbling  shrine  of  Vacuna.  For  here  em- 
bedded in  the  great  wall  of  the  Castello  is  an  inscription 
which  tells  how  Vespasian  restored  a  shrine  of  Victoria 
which  was  falling  apart  from  its  antiquity  and  since  the 
Sabines  identified  Victoria  with  their  goddess  Vacuna, 
this  inscription  may  very  well  refer  to  the  shrine  near 
which  Horace  wrote.  Also  near  the  inscription  in  the 
wall  is  set  a  little  relief  of  limestone  about  a  foot  square 
representing  a  goddess  in  chiton  and  himation,  her  right 
hand  clasping  the  forelegs  of  a  deer.  Possibly  this 
relief  came  from  the  same  source  as  the  inscription,  as 
Dr.  Van  Buren  has  suggested,  and  represents  Victoria 


The  Rome  That  Horace  Knew    181 

or  Vacuna  in  the  guise  of  Diana.  If  so,  perhaps  near 
this  tiny  goddess  Horace  wrote  his  whimsical  and  de- 
lightful letter  to  Aristius  Fuscus. 

About  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  Rocca  Giovane,  in 
the  plateau  below,  traces  of  a  Roman  villa  were  dis- 
covered years  ago,  mosaic  pavement  that  seems  to  be 
covered  up  again,  as  last  summer  our  guide  could  not 
find  them,  and  this  site  was  acclaimed  by  scholars  like 
Pietro  Rosa  and  Gaston  Boissier  as  the  most  suitable 
for  Horace's  Sabine  farm.  More  popular,  however, 
has  been  the  location  further  up  the  valley  near  three 
branching  streams  of  the  Licenza.  Certainly  the  lay 
of  the  land  suits  perfectly  Horace's  enchanting  descrip- 
tion of  the  dark  valley  with  mountains  all  around  ex- 
cept where  the  rising  sun  looks  in  on  the  right  and  the 
setting  sun  casts  its  gleam  across.  Mount  Lucretilis 
towers  up  in  the  west,  olive-covered,  and  there  is  a 
spring  too,  worthy  to  give  its  name  to  the  little  stream 
(Ep.  1,  16,  1-16).  Here  the  whole  plan  of  a  small 
Roman  villa  has  been  excavated.  You  will  be  guided 
to  it  by  a  footpath's  confident  signpost:  "Villa  d'Orazio 
Flacco." 

Disregard  the  later  ruins  of  the  baths  of  the  time  of 
Vespasian  and  of  the  Antonines,  and  walk  around  the 
low  foundation  walls  which  outline  garden,  halls  and 
rooms.  A  crypto-porticus  surrounded  the  garden  in 
front  and  there  was  a  fish-pond  in  the  center.  From  the 
garden  you  could  ascend  to  the  house  by  one  of  three 
little  flights  of  steps.  Across  the  whole  width  of  the 
villa  extended  a  front  hall  out  of  which  a  central  atrium 
opened  with  three  rooms  on  either  side  and  in  some  of 
these  the  old  floor  is  still  there,  lovely  mosaic  patterns 
in  black  and  white  stars  and  rays.  Such  modest  rooms 
they  seem  that  I  am  surprised  to  find  critics  denying  such 


182  Italy  Old  and  New 

elegance  to  the  modest  poet  who  would  have  his  motto 
pervum  parva  decent. 

The  objects  found  in  the  villa  are  arranged  in  a  room 
at  the  very  top  of  the  steep  hill  on  which  the  tiny  town 
of  Licenza  lies  and  it  is  worth  the  climb  to  see  them, 
for  here  are  coins,  wine-jars,  marble  fragments,  a  faun's 
head  from  a  fountain,  lamps,  pottery,  pieces  of  mosaics, 
dice,  keys,  rings.  All  these  little  things,  so  many  from 
homely  everyday  use,  are  interesting,  but  they  did  not 
give  me  any  such  sense  of  Horace's  habitation  as  did 
the  olive-trees  and  the  spring  in  the  retired  valley,  be- 
girt by  wooded  mountains. 

It  is  for  such  country  that  Horace  sighed  in  the  midst 
of  the  fret  of  Rome,  and  we  get  an  idea  of  the  sort  of 
life  he  led  on  his  Sabine  farm  when  he  exclaims:  uO 
country,  when  shall  I  behold  you?  When  may  I  quaff 
delightful  Lethe  for  the  cares  of  life,  now  from  the 
books  of  the  ancients,  now  from  sleep  and  lazy  hours. 
O  the  nights  and  the  banquets  fit  for  gods  which  I  and 
mine  enjoy  before  my  hearth  while  I  feed  my  slaves' 
saucy  children  bits  of  the  banquet.  .  .  .  Each  man 
drinks  as  he  will.  .  .  .  Then  talk  begins,  not  about  the 
villas  and  houses  of  other  men  or  whether  Lepos 
dances  well  or  ill,  ...  but  whether  men  are  happy  be- 
cause of  wealth  or  virtue;  what  makes  friendship,  ad- 
vantage or  character;  what  is  good  and  what  is  the 
greatest  good"  (Sat.  2,  6,  60-75).  Then  in  one  ex- 
quisite ode  he  pictures  the  tall  pine  towering  up  over 
his  villa  which  he  wishes  to  dedicate  to  Diana,  goddess 
of  woods  and  groves  (C.  3,  22),  and  in  another  he  de- 
scribes his  villa  in  festive  array  to  celebrate  Maecenas' 
birthday, — all  the  silver  shining,  the  altar  decked  with 
fresh  boughs  ready  for  the  sacrifice,  the  jar  full  of 


jjp£p 


"■  ■».-., 


THE   OLD   WALL   AT    VICOVARO 


Till'.    VILLA    OF    OL'INTl'S    IIORATIUS    FLACCUS" 


The  Rome  That  Horace  Knew    183 

Alban  wine,  the  slave-boys  and  girls  running  excitedly 
hither  and  thither  (C.  4,  11,  1-12). 

Horace  knew  how  different  his  life  in  the  country  and 
the  life  of  Maecenas  or  Quintilius  Varus  was  from  the 
work  and  rest  of  the  simple  peasant  farmer,  and  per- 
haps that  is  the  reason  why  in  Epode  2  after  so  serious 
and  beautiful  a  picture  of  a  peasant's  cares  and  joys, 
the  poet  at  the  end  attributes  the  whole  account  of 
country  life  to  a  usurer  who,  just  on  the  point  of  becom- 
ing a  farmer,  called  in  all  his  money  on  the  Ides,  but 
loaned  it  out  again  on  the  Kalends.  And  this  surpris- 
ing satire-ending  to  so  idyllic  an  epode,  reminds  us  again 
of  Vulteius  Menas  who  encouraged  by  Philippus 
bought  a  farm  in  the  Sabine  hills,  only  to  find,  after 
sheep  were  stolen,  goats  died,  crops  disappointed  hopes 
and  the  ox  was  broken  plowing,  that  the  country  was 
not  for  him  and  that  every  man  should  measure  himself 
with  his  own  foot-rule  (Ep.  1,7). 

For  the  real  peasant  Horace  has  ready  understanding 
and  sympathy, — Sabine  mother  or  sunburned  wife  of 
an  industrious  Apulian  who  when  her  husband  comes 
home  weary  from  work  at  night  has  the  flock  milked 
in  the  stalls,  the  fire  on  the  hearth,  sweet  wine  in  clean 
flagon  and  on  the  table  a  dinner  that  costs  nothing 
(Ep.  2,  41-48),  or  the  youth  gathering  and  cutting 
firewood  at  the  bidding  of  stern  mother,  or  some  peas- 
ant father  like  Horace's  own.  How  affectionately  and 
proudly  he  relates  that  from  his  small  possessions  his 
father  had  the  courage  to  give  his  son  the  best  education 
that  any  knight  or  senator  could  give  his  boy,  and  then 
himself  escorted  him  to  and  from  school  to  keep  him 
chaste  in  the  midst  of  city  dangers,  and  as  they  walked, 
taught  him  many  a  lesson  from  comments  on  the  people 
they  passed   (Sat.   1,  6,  71-84;  Sat.   1,  4,   105-126). 


IS  1  Italy  Old  and  New 

We  wonder  if  Horace  had  his  own  father  in  mind  when 
he  wrote  the  satire  about  the  countryman,  Ofellus,  that 
philosopher  apart  from  the  schools  with  a  powerful 
mother-wit  (Sat.  2,  2).  Very  noble  is  his  philosophy 
of  the  simple  life ;  very  simple  his  standard  of  wealth, — 
that  a  man  can  possess  only  what  he  can  use ;  very  cheer- 
ful his  spirit  when,  dispossessed  from  his  farm,  he  en- 
courages his  sons  as  they  work  as  hirelings  in  the  fields 
which  once  they  owned,  bidding  them:  "Live  valiantly 
and  present  valiant  breasts  to  Fortune's  stings."  Cer- 
tainly that  most  Horatian  satire  seems  to  embody  much 
of  the  good  sense  and  sturdy  spirit  which  Horace  in- 
herited from  his  wise  freedman  father. 

In  the  Collegio  Romano  in  Rome  today  on  the  wall 
in  the  lower  court  there  hangs  a  tablet  to  the  students 
of  the  college  who  perished  in  the  Great  War.  The 
marble  relief  pictures  a  group  of  young  Italian  soldiers 
sweeping  over  the  top,  bayonets  sternly  set.  Below  is 
a  pile  of  books  which  seem  to  signify  the  education  that 
had  enabled  them  to  do  their  terrible  and  uncompromis- 
ing duty  when  the  hour  struck;  and  for  the  Italian  stu- 
dents those  books  were  Horace,  Dante,  Carducci.  I 
think  Horace's  name  was  inscribed  there  not  only  be- 
cause he  lauded  great  civic  virtues  and  chanted 

dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori, 

but  because  in  the  larger  Rome  of  city  and  environs  he 
had  acquired  that  catholic  knowledge  of  city  life  and 
of  country  life,  of  city  people  and  of  country  people, 
which  enabled  him  to  scale  values  correctly,  to  appraise 
true  virtue,  and  to  know  what  counts  for  life  and  death. 
I  commend  to  you  the  poet  who  with  a  smile  on  his  lips 
saw  life  steadily  and  saw  it  whole,  then  dared  knock  at 
the  stars  with  his  exalted  head. 


XIV 

SLABSIDES  AND  THE  SABINE  FARM 

AN  IMAGINARY  CONVERSATION 

Reprinted  from  The  Classical  Journal,  Vol.  X,  No.  5,  February  1915. 

(Scene:  The  living-room  of  a  camp  cottage.  Doors  open 
opposite  each  other  on  the  long  sides,  and  a  staircase  goes  up 
at  the  back.  At  the  north  there  is  a  great  fireplace  made  of 
rough  field  stones,  in  which  a  bright  log  fire  is  burning.  At 
the  left  of  the  fireplace  are  bookshelves,  and  beside  them  a 
window-seat  with  a  red  Indian  rug  over  it.  In  this  corner  of 
the  room  stands  a  large,  pine-wood  table  with  rustic  legs,  on 
which  are  books  and  papers.  A  photograph  of  Walt  Whitman 
is  on  the  wall  near.  On  the  other  side  of  the  fireplace  is  a 
cupboard  with  dishes  and  a  kitchen  table.  At  the  south  of  the 
room  in  a  deep  alcove  stands  a  rustic  bed.  Near  the  foot  of 
the  staircase  stands  a  long  pine  table — evidently  the  dining- 
table.  Two  rocking-chairs  are  drawn  up  in  front  of  the  fire- 
place and  in  one  sits  a  man  over  seventy,  dressed  in  gray,  with 
white  hair  and  beard,  blue  eyes,  and  vigorous  frame.  As  the 
October  rain  falls  more  heavily  outside,  he  stirs  the  fire.  When 
he  looks  up,  a  guest  is  sitting  in  the  other  chair.  He  is  of 
medium  stature;  his  gray  hair  waves  over  a  low  forehead; 
his  face  is  smooth;  he  wears  a  voluminous  white  robe  of  soft 
wool.     The  man  in  gray,  who  is  John  Burroughs,  speaks.) 


J 


WELCOME,  stranger,  to  Slabsides.    It  is  a 
bad  night  on  the  road,  and  I  know  that 
white  garb  must  need  drying  at  my  fire. 
"My  robe  is  not  wet,  for  I  have  come  through  kin- 
ship to  you,  not  by  traveling,  so  I  did  not  need  to  be 
girded  high.     Bonds  of  congeniality  break  down  bar- 

185 


186  Italy  Old  and  New 

riers,  and  Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus,  longing  for  an  at- 
mosphere like  his  Sabine  farm's,  has  escaped  for  a  little 
while  from  the  shades." 

"I  have  often  wanted  to  talk  with  you,  Horatius, 
and  my  desire  must  have  helped  bring  you.  I  have 
wondered  whether  you  would  like  this  little  place  of 
mine  and  the  independence  of  my  life  here." 

"Your  fire  is  very  welcome  to  me.  I  believe  in  shut- 
ting out  the  cold  and  heaping  high  the  logs  with  lavish 
hand.  In  its  cheer  you  must  tell  me  more  of  your 
house." 

"This  is  not  my  real  roof-tree.  That  is  a  stone  house 
down  by  the  river,  built  of  the  native  rock.  But  this 
one-room  shack  with  the  bark  of  the  trees  on  the  out- 
side, dropped  like  a  bird's  nest  in  the  wood,  is  the  study 
where  I  live  alone  for  days  and  write." 

"I  had  but  one  house,  but  it  was  in  the  quiet  of  the 
Sabine  hills,  far  from  the  smoke  and  wealth  and  noise 
of  Rome.  It  was  larger  than  this,  but  quiet  enough  to 
give  me  peace  for  writing." 

"I  have  been  reading  that  the  Italian  archaeologists 
claim  to  have  found  the  site  of  your  house,  Horatius, 
and  that  the  place  is  so  elaborate  that  learned  men  say 
either  it  cannot  be  your  villa  or  else  all  your  talk  about 
the  simple  life  was  mere  pretense." 

"You  would  not  have  me  end  their  discussion  by 
assertion,  would  you  ?  No !  Let  every  Tigellius  drone 
on  his  lore  to  his  female  pupils  from  his  arm-chair,  and 
all  who  wish  discuss  how  far  distant  was  Codrus  from 
ancient  Inachus.  You  know  from  my  writing  that  my 
house  had  no  columns  of  African  marble  supporting 
architraves  from  Hymettus,  and  that  inside  I  cared 
most  about  the  hearth-fire.  The  house  itself  did  not 
mean  so  much  to  me  as  my  piece  of  land  and  its  sur- 


An  Imaginary  Conversation       187 

roundings.  Mountains  all  around  it  had,  John  Bur- 
roughs, but  broken,  so  that  the  morning  and  the  eve- 
ning sun  warmed  the  valley.  Then  there  was  a  piece 
of  woodland,  a  spring  of  pure  water,  berry  bushes, 
oak  trees,  a  great  pine  over  the  house,  a  river  below." 

"You  had  in  one  place  what  I  have  in  several.  I 
will  take  you  down  presently  to  my  spring  here  and  you 
will  find  its  water,  too,  clearer  than  glass  and  useful  for 
head  and  stomach.  But  for  your  encircling  mountains 
I  have  to  go  back  to  my  birthplace  in  the  heart  of  the 
southern  Catskills.  There  the  green  hills  rise  on  all 
sides  and  the  little  trout  stream  makes  music  over  the 
rocks." 

"I  should  miss  that  sound  of  the  water  here  at  your 
Slabsides  in  summer,  for  I  confess  to  liking  to  steal  a 
part  of  the  solid  day  to  lie  under  the  greenwood  tree 
or  beside  the  sacred  source  of  some  gently  flowing 
stream.  The  river  near  my  house  was  one  of  those 
little  brooks  in  whose  murmur  I  delight." 

"Tell  me,  Horatius,  were  you  only  a  play-farmer,  or 
did  you  really  cultivate  your  ground  and  eat  food  that 
you  did  not  have  to  buy?" 

"My  own  hands  did  not  do  much  work,  for  when  I 
took  a  pick  and  turned  the  glebes,  the  neighbors  all 
laughed  at  my  awkwardness.  The  slaves  did  the  farm 
work.  But  my  wine  was  made  at  home  and  my  fare 
was  simple — olives  and  mallows,  leaks,  peas,  and  cakes. 
Even  Maecenas  had  to  be  content  with  my  country 
produce  when  he  came  out  from  his  palace  towering  to 
the  stars." 

"I  too  have  vineyards  on  the  hill  sloping  to  the  Hud- 
son, the  great  river  near  my  real  house,  and  here  in 
this  little  valley  at  Slabsides  a  farmer  who  rents  the 
ground  of  me  raises  celery  in  the  rich,  black  soil.    But 


188  Italy  Old  and  New 

1  have  to  buy  my  olives.    I  envy  you  that  tree  of  Italy." 

"Still,  by  Bacchus,  you  have  the  vine  and,  as  I  told 
Varus,  there  is  no  tree  that  one  would  rather  set  out 
than  that.  And  then,  after  all,  who  would  change  his 
own  country  for  tree  or  aught  else  of  another's?  When 
you  came  back  from  October  abroad,  you  said  you  'ex- 
perienced the  delight  that  only  the  returned  traveler 
can  feel — the  instant  preference  of  one's  own  country 
and  countrymen  over  all  the  rest  of  the  world.'  I,  even 
fresh  from  Greece,  let  others  praise  Apollo's  Delphi 
and  Pallas'  Athens.  Nor  did  hardy  Lacedaemon  move 
me  as  much  as  the  rushing  Anio  and  the  groves  of 
Tibur." 

"You  must  have  lived  a  happy  life  in  your  Sabine 
valley,  even  though  you  never  married  and  never  had 
sturdy  sons  and  little  grandchildren  to  lisp  your  name. 
'A  childless  life  is  a  tree  without  branches,  a  house  with- 
out windows.'  I  could  not  get  along  without  my  grand- 
son, little  John  Burroughs.  I  believe  he  is  going  to  be 
a  poet,  for  when  he  was  in  his  cradle,  'I  saw  his  eye 
in  a  fine  frenzy  rolling' !" 

"Ah  !  But  no  thought  of  heir  kept  me  from  enjoying 
my  little  fortune,  and  women  came  with  laughter  and 
lyre  and  song — Lalage,  Cinara,  Tyndaris.  As  many 
men,  as  many  tastes.  And  while  I  am  in  my  right  senses, 
I  would  never  compare  anything  with  a  pleasant 
friend." 

"There  are  women  now  such  as  you  never  conceived, 
Horatius,  even  with  your  praise  of  the  sunburned 
Apulian  wife  and  your  admiration  of  Cleopatra's  cour- 
age. They  come  to  see  me  from  a  great  college  near, 
strong  of  body,  quick  of  mind,  real  comrades,  and  they 
quote  your  poem  about  your  Bandusian  spring  at  my 
spring." 


An  Imaginary  Conversation       189 

"I  always  dreaded  the  fate  of  being  studied  by  school 
children  in  remote  country  districts,  but  I  never  thought 
that  such  a  lot  awaited  me  in  a  school  for  Chloes  and 
Leuconoes !" 

"Well,  you  knew  the  worth  of  friendship  with  men, 
and  you  knew  all  sorts  and  enjoyed  all,  great  and  small. 
I've  often  thought  of  your  going  about  with  Maecenas 
in  his  raeda  as  /  do  with  Mr.  Ford  in  his  automobile. 
The  emperor  Augustus  you  were  never  as  closely  asso- 
ciated with  as  I  was  with  Colonel  Roosevelt  when  we 
went  camping  and  tramping  in  the  Rockies,  yet  rumor 
said  that  he  wished  to  make  you  his  secretary  in  his 
household  once." 

"True,  he  did,  but  one  period  of  service  as  a  scriba, 
even  for  a  quaestor,  was  enough  to  give  me  a  distaste  for 
such  routine  work." 

"I  know.  I  held  a  governmental  position  once  and 
kept  accounts,  sitting  on  a  high  stool,  while  it  was  spring 
in  Washington,  and  Walt  Whitman  was  out  on  the  open 
road.    I  could  not  stand  it  long." 

"Walt  Whitman!  I  have  only  seen  his  great  and 
vital  shade.    Tell  me  more  of  the  man." 

'"Vital'  is  indeed  the  word  for  him.  He  had  in  the 
flesh  the  wonderful  personality  that  fills  his  poems.  He 
was  as  strong  as  a  man  and  as  tender  as  a  woman.  He 
gave  up  his  life  to  nurse  the  wounded  soldiers  in  the 
war,  for  that  work  broke  down  his  magnificent  physique 
and  his  old  age  was  spent  in  a  paralytic's  chair,  by  the 
window,  as  you  see  him  there  in  the  picture.  His  poetry 
is  as  great  as  he  was  great." 

"I  remember  about  Whitman  now.  He  was  the  new 
poet  you  helped  make  known  to  the  world  in  that  splen- 
did defense  'The  Flight  of  the  Eagle.'  The  genera- 
tions are  alike,  and  still  it  is  hard  for  the  critics  to  real- 


190  Italy  Old  and  New 

ize  that  any  writing  is  good  which  does  not  bear  the 
stamp  of  antiquity.  Every  old  poem  is  sacred  to  them, 
and  they  forget  that  if  the  Greeks  had  hated  the  new 
as  we  do,  we  should  now  have  no  classics !  I  tried  to 
make  the  Romans  of  my  time  appreciate  Vergil  and 
Varius  as  well  as  Ennius  and  Accius,  but  it  was  hard 
work." 

"Your  satires  and  epistles,  though  poems,  are  much 
like  my  essays,  for  they  let  you  comment  on  men  and 
books,  on  life  and  literature.  Their  style  is  conversa- 
tional and  not  learned,  and  their  appeal  directly  to  the 
reader." 

"I  never  called  my  sermones  poems,  for  they  were 
the  work  of  a  pedestrian  muse  and  lacked  the  grand 
style  and  the  genius  of  true  poesy.  No,  I  had  a  right 
to  knock  at  the  stars  only  because  of  my  odes." 

"Such  poetry  as  that  I  have  never  written.  My 
verses  are  simple  strains  of  bird  and  bough.  Some 
said,  'John,  print  them,'  others  said,  'Not  so,'  but  I 
printed  them,  for  they  meant  to  me  the  song  of  the 
thrush  and  the  call  of  the  bluebird." 

"I  have  no  real  nature  poems  unless  you  would  so  call 
the  one  on  the  Bandusian  spring.  But  I  loved  the 
country :  the  sound  of  running  water,  the  shade  of  trees, 
the  flowers  of  the  rose  and  the  myrtle,  the  rocks  painted 
with  moss,  the  startled  fawn  in  the  wood.  I  had  it  all 
out  with  Aristius  Fuscus,  who  was  a  lover  of  the  city 
always.  I  told  him  that  I  lived  and  reigned  when  once 
I  had  left  the  things  which  he  extolled  to  heaven." 

"And  one  needs  the  country  for  writing." 

"Yes,  how  could  any  man  write  poems  in  Rome  in 
the  midst  of  so  many  anxieties  and  labors  ?  There  were 
always  calls  to  make,  business  to  attend,  the  distracting 
noises  of  the  street  to  interrupt  tuneful  verses.     The 


An  Imaginary  Conversation       191 

whole  band  of  poets  rightly  loves  the  woods  and  shuns 
the  city." 

"I  do  my  writing  here,  often  spend  long  days  and 
nights  here  entirely  by  myself,  or  with  perhaps  my 
neighbor's  dog  for  company." 

"You  read  here,  too,  I  see  from  these  books  by  the 
wall." 

"Yes,  I  do  not  own  many,  but  I  have  read  them  all." 

"It  was  ever  a  joy  to  me  when  I  could  pack  up  Plato 
and  Menander  and  be  off  to  the  country  with  them. 
I  went  to  the  Greeks  for  my  inspiration." 

"Did  you  get  your  philosophy  of  life,  too,  from 
them?" 

"I  started  out  to,  but  I  found  that  there  a  man  can- 
not be  sworn  to  follow  the  word  of  any  master." 

"Two  American  writers  gave  me  a  lift  forward — 
Emerson  and  Whitman — but  I  too  found  that  for  a 
philosophy  of  life,  as  well  as  for  writing,  a  man  has  to 
leave  all  models  and  get  down  to  his  real  self  and  his 
real  thought." 

"And  then  how  simple  a  thing  the  philosophy  that 
one  can  use  and  live  by  becomes !  To  be  contented  with 
little  and  scorn  great  possessions,  to  make  much  of 
friendship  and  nothing  of  office,  to  live  to  the  full  one's 
own  life,  and  yet  somehow  (perhaps  by  writing)  to 
serve  others,  and  then  not  to  be  afraid  of  death,  nor 
become  embittered  by  old  age,  but  to  grow  happier  and 
more  mellow  as  the  years  pass  1" 

"That  is  my  philosophy,  too,  at  'the  summit  of  the 
years.'  'I  have  kept  apart  from  the  strife  and  fever  of 
the  world,  and  the  maelstrom  of  business  and  political 
life,  and  have  sought  the  paths  by  the  still  waters,  and 
in  the  quiet  fields,  and  life  has  been  sweet  and  whole- 
some to  me.  ...  I  say  to  myself,  What  is  all  this 


192  Italy  Old  and  New 

rattling  machinery  of  government  for,  but  that  men  may 
all  have  just  the  sane  and  contented  life  that  I  am  liv- 
ing, and  on  the  same  terms  that  I  do?  They  can  find  it 
in  the  next  field,  beyond  the  next  hill,  in  the  town  or  in 
the  country — a  land  of  peace  and  plenty,  if  one  has 
peace  in  his  heart.'  " 

"How  often  I  have  said  that!  'What  you  seek  is 
here,  is  at  Ulubrae,  if  you  have  a  contented  spirit.'  " 

"And  then  I  have  escaped  the  greed  of  wealth;  the 
'mania  of  owning  things,'  as  Whitman  called  it." 

"Man  really  owns  only  what  he  can  use." 

"  'I  have  escaped  the  disappointment  of  political  am- 
bition, of  business  ambition,  of  social  ambition;  I  have 
never  been  a  cog  in  anybody's  wheel,  or  an  attachment 
to  the  tail  of  anybody's  kite.  I  have  never  lost  myself 
in  the  procession  of  parties  or  trained  with  any  sect  or 
clique.  I  have  been  fortunate  in  being  allowed  to  go 
my  own  way  in  the  world.'  " 

"  'It  is  right  that  each  man  should  measure  himself 
by  his  own  footrule.'  " 

"  'And  the  longer  I  live  the  more  my  mind  dwells 
upon  the  beauty  and  the  wonder  of  the  world.'  I  am  a 
great  believer  in  letting  Nature  work  and  send  her 
divine  influence  through  the  whole  being.  It  was  out  of 
the  truth  that  Nature  and  experience  gave  me  that  I 
wrote  my  best  poem : 

"Serene,  I  fold  my  hands  and  wait, 
Nor  care  for  wind,  or  tide,  or  sea; 
I  rave  no  more  'gainst  time  or  fate, 
For,  lo !  my  own  shall  come  to  me." 

"I  read  those  iambi  of  yours  and  they  helped  bring 
me  to  you — like  to  like.  I  am  glad  that  while  the  pur- 
suit of  wealth  still  torments  the  ambitious  and  a  strenu- 


An  Imaginary  Conversation       193 

ous  doing  of  nothing  wears  out  the  restless,  at  Slabsides 
you  have  found  the  secret  of  right  living.  I  hope  we 
shall  talk  again.  At  least  we  have  had  this  day,  and 
what  once  has  passed,  even  Jupiter  cannot  undo  or 
steal.  John  Burroughs,  I  know  one  more  white  soul. 
Live.     Farewell." 

Suddenly  the  second  chair  by  the  Slabsides'  fire  was 
empty. 


XV 


OVID  IN  SULMONA 


"  a  MAN'S  life  is  bounded  by  the  triangle  of 
/\  heredity,  education  and  environment."  So 
A  \.  runs  a  famous  saying  which  contains  some 
truth  for  me.  Yet  I  have  often  wondered  how  much 
of  the  line  of  environment  should  be  assigned  to  birth- 
place. We  know  something  of  the  effects  of  topog- 
raphy and  climate  on  racial  and  national  character- 
istics, but  who  has  made  a  careful  investigation  of  the 
possible  results  of  early  surroundings  on  individual 
character?  Walter  Pater  has  essayed  an  exquisite 
imaginative  study  in  his  "Child  in  the  House"  of  those 
many  gossamer  filaments  attached  to  our  first  home 
that  over  and  over  again  in  after-life  brush  across  the 
face  so  delicately.  For  myself,  I  surmise  that  the  pe- 
culiar restfulness  for  me  of  small  azure  lakes  sur- 
rounded by  gently  curving  hills  and  a  glimpse  of  blue 
water  through  stirring  leaves  goes  back  to  the  fact  that 
all  my  childhood  picnics  were  on  the  shore  of  one  of 
the  Finger  Lakes  of  Central  New  York.  And  if  place 
associations  have  such  hold  as  they  surely  do  for  ani- 
mals and  for  ordinary  people,  how  much  more  must  it 
be  significant  that  Mantua  rejoices  in  Vergil,  Verona  in 
Catullus  and  that  Ovid  is  called  the  glory  of  the  Paelig- 
nian  race?  For  poets,  surely  the  sights  and  sounds  of 
which  eyes  and  ears  first  become  aware  must  be  a  crea- 
tive force  in  future  personality. 

Partly  for  this,  partly  because  I  love  the  Very  Young, 

194 


Ovid  in  Sulmona  195 

I  am  more  interested  in  beginnings  than  in  endings  and 
I  defy  old  Solon's  sententious  maxim:  "Count  no  man 
happy  until  he  dies."  For  that  reckoning,  waiting  is 
too  dangerous  and  I  would  rather  rush  out  with  my 
basket  to  cull  the  flowers  of  childhood.  So  when  I  read 
of  "Ovid  among  the  Goths"  by  that  Naturalist  of  Souls, 
Gamaliel  Bradford,  my  mind  reverted  at  once  from  old 
Ovid  beside  the  Black  Sea  to  young  Ovid  in  the  Abruzzi. 
Some  time  I  am  going  to  spend  a  few  weeks  between 
Pescara  and  Sulmona,  walking  in  the  mountains  and 
reading  the  poetry  of  Publius  Ovidius  Naso  and  Ga- 
briele  D'Annunzio  to  see  if  I  can  find  out  why  those 
snow-capped  ranges  produced  two  such  romantic  and 
hybrid  poets.  Meanwhile  I  have  journeyed  to  Sulmona 
for  these  snapshot  impressions.  The  way  of  approach 
which  I  happened  to  select  was  peculiarly  preparative 
for  beauty,  as  I  came  up  from  Brindisi  along  the  eastern 
coast  of  Italy  to  Castellammare-Adriatico  and  then 
turned  across  country  towards  Rome  and  the  long  day 
had  given  me  first  the  sea,  then  the  mountains.  My 
mind  carries  many  pictures :  the  great,  fertile,  Apulian 
plain  stretching  level  and  unbounded  like  the  Roman 
Campagna;  the  surprisingly  small  and  quiet  Aufidus 
which  Horace  from  his  child-memories  had  led  me  to 
suppose  would  be  a  roaring  flood;  Horace's  Monte 
Gargano,  stretching  out  into  the  sea,  not  a  great  jutting 
crag  as  I  had  pictured  it,  but  a  long  level  ridge  with  one 
crater-like  crest  slightly  elevated;  and  all  the  way  north 
here  and  there  olive  groves  and  over  their  tops  (except 
as  we  rounded  Gargano)  glimpses  of  the  divine  blue  of 
the  Adriatic  and  flitting  across  the  sea,  bright,  pointed 
sails  of  white  and  crimson  and  gold.  Then  when  we 
turned  sharply  away  from  the  coast  at  Castellammare, 
there  were  at  once  the  magnificent  mountains. 


196  Italy  Old  and  New 

And  it  was  here  between  Pescara  and  Sulmona  that 
I  thought  of  D'Annunzio's  dedication  of  "La  figlia  di 
Iorio," — 'To  the  land  of  the  Abruzzi  ...  to  all  my 
people  between  the  mountains  and  the  sea'  and  I  remem- 
bered that  here  was  laid  not  only  the  scene  of  that 
tragedy  but  also  of  another,  "La  fiaccola  sotto  il 
moggio,"  which  I  had  seen  given  in  Rome,  so  full  of 
the  immemorial  traditions  of  these  hills, — the  snake- 
charmer  and  his  witch-daughter  going  back  even  to 
Vergil's  epic.  From  this  country  too  came  those  strange 
stories  of  his  birth-place  "Le  novelle  della  Pescara," 
at  once  so  vigorous  and  so  haunting.  All  these  seemed 
the  legitimate  children  of  these  rugged  and  barren 
rocks — but  D'Annunzio's  other  writings,  many  of 
them,  and  the  man!  How  could  this  hard  and  barren 
district,  fit  for  the  dens  of  lions  and  for  the  huts  of 
hardy,  simple  peasants,  have  suckled  so  febrile,  com- 
plex, sensuous  and  sensitive  a  highly-strung  twentieth 
century  organism  as  the  author  of  "II  Fuoco"? 

And  the  other  poet-son  of  the  Abruzzi,  Ovid,  had  a 
career  no  less  romantic  and  spectacular  than  D'Annun- 
zio's. Towards  the  end  of  the  day  as  the  train  jogged 
on  through  the  dim  landscape  of  the  twilight,  I  brooded 
over  these  strange  anomalies,  wondering  what  Sulmona 
could  have  thought  of  the  meteor-like  apparition  of  her 
son  in  Rome.  Ovid  tells  us  in  a  poetic  letter  his  own 
story  or  at  least  he  tells  us  all  except  the  Great  Mys- 
tery at  which  he  vaguely  hints.  "If  I  were  king,"  as 
the  saying  runs,  in  my  benevolent  despotism  I  should 
decree  that  all  my  subjects  should  be  educated  enough  to 
write  truthful  autobiographies,  and  I  should  have  these 
constitute  the  state  archives.  This  would  remove  all 
need  of  a  secret  service  department,  would  enhance  the 
value  of  the  work  of  librarians,  at  least  for  cataloguing 


Ovid  in  Sulmona  197 

and  reference,  would  check,  the  careers  of  professional 
psycho-analysts,  would  increase  power  as  each  person 
would  have  to  evaluate  his  own  life  while  setting  it 
down  on  paper,  and  would  develop  a  clear  English  style 
from  practice  in  writing  on  a  familiar  subject.  I  am 
sure  that  at  least  Socrates  with  his  dictum  "Know  thy- 
self" would  approve  of  my  fundamental,  national  reg- 
ulation. 

Now  Ovid,  I  think,  knew  himself  and  he  knew  how 
to  tell  a  story,  witness  the  Metamorphoses,  in  fact  that 
was,  I  believe,  his  greatest  literary  power,  but  he  chose 
deliberately  to  be  obscure  or  mysterious  about  the  cru- 
cial point  of  his  life.  It  is  as  though  a  drama  rose  to  its 
denouement  and  subsided  from  it,  but  never  explained 
what  the  denouement  was. 

Ovid  lived  in  a  post-war  period  when,  after  one  hun- 
dred years  of  civil  struggle  had  culminated  in  the  death 
of  Julius  Caesar,  a  golden  age  of  peace  was  achieved, 
a  time  of  reconstruction,  of  great  building  activity,  large 
literary  output,  growing  luxury.  Ovid  was  the  child  of 
this  age  of  peace  and  plenty,  a  product  of  a  society  in 
which  the  younger  generation,  knowing  nothing  of  polit- 
ical struggle,  and  little  of  military  service,  revelled  in 
amusement,  coquetry,  and  all  the  joys  of  the  light  of 
heart. 

The  autobiography  of  course  begins  with  his  birth- 
place :  "Sulmo  is  my  native  place,  a  district  very  fertile 
from  its  cool  streams,  and  ninety  miles  distant  from 
Rome."  Then  very  proudly  though  with  feigned  indif- 
ference he  shows  that  he  belonged  to  an  important 
family  in  the  little  town,  was  a  knight  as  a  whole  line 
of  ancestors  had  been.  The  affection  of  his  childhood 
centered  in  the  brother  one  year  older  than  himself 
whose  birthday  came  on  the  same  day,  and  there  is  a 


198  Italy  Old  and  New 

good  deal  about  their  education, — how  when  very  young 
they  were  sent  by  their  careful  father  to  the  most  dis- 
tinguished teachers  in  Rome,  and  how  the  older  boy 
seemed  born  to  be  a  lawyer,  but  young  Naso  was  his 
father's  despair  for  he  would  write  poetry  instead  of 
studying  oratory.  "Why,"  demanded  his  practical 
parent,  "Why  do  you  pursue  a  useless  calling?  Homer 
himself  left  no  wealth!"  So  Naso  tried  valiantly  to 
reform,  but  in  the  midst  of  efforts  to  write  rhetorical 
speeches,  like  Pope,  he  lisped  in  numbers,  for  the  num- 
bers came.  Perhaps  he  endeavored  still  more  conscien- 
tiously to  please  his  father  after  his  brother's  death  at 
twenty,  the  shock  that  stole  from  him  part  of  himself, 
for  he  did  hold  some  minor  political  offices.  But  the 
sight  of  the  senate  ahead  and  a  long  and  honorable 
career  made  him  certain  that  neither  his  body  nor  his 
mind  could  stand  so  strenuous  and  ambitious  a  life,  and 
once  for  all  he  made  his  great  decision  for  dear  leisure 
under  the  Muse's  sway.  Now  he  was  one  of  the  com- 
pany of  poets  of  the  day,  and  soon  his  own  light  verses 
about  a  certain  Corinna  set  all  Rome  agog  to  find  out 
the  identity  of  his  fair  innamorata.  One  can  imagine 
what  rumors  reached  Sulmo  of  his  affairs,  as  his  light 
and  elegant  poems  became  the  joy  of  Rome's  gayest 
and  most  fashionable  circles.  For  thirty  years  he  was 
the  poet-laureate  of  pleasure  for  the  Roman  world. 

Meanwhile,  unlike  Catullus,  Vergil,  Horace,  he  mar- 
ried, or  experimented  in  marriage,  let  us  say,  as  he 
did  in  office-holding,  for  he  seems  to  have  taken  his 
marital  relations  as  lightly  as  he  did  his  public  career. 
Three  wives  he  had :  the  first  a  woman  not  worthy  of 
him  (he  says)  and  barren,  hence  divorced;  the  second, 
above  reproach,  but  not  destined  to  be  with  him  long 
(no  reason  assigned)  ;  the  third  a  member  of  the  dis- 


Ovid  in  Sulmona  199 

tinguished  Fabian  family,  and  always  loyal  and  devoted 
to  him  if  we  can  judge  from  his  letters  to  her,  for  as 
Bradford  wittily  points  out,  we  have  none  of  her  let- 
ters or  diaries  for  the  other  side  of  the  story.  His  one 
daughter,  Perilla,  he  seems  to  have  loved. 

In  poetry,  at  first,  as  in  education,  career  and  mar- 
riage, Ovid  followed  his  own  bent  and  in  the  first  period 
of  his  literary  output  produced  iuvenilia  which  in  vari- 
ous forms  all  treated  the  theme  of  love :  the  light  and 
graceful  Amoves  which  celebrated  Corinna,  the  He- 
roides  or  love-letters  of  ancient  heroines,  the  absurd 
skit  on  the  care  of  the  face  with  directions  fit  for  a 
beauty-parlor,  and  the  two  didactic  poems  on  the  Art 
of  Love  and  the  Remedy  of  Love  which  are  so  bril- 
liantly unmoral  and  seductive.  If  Ovid  had  stopped 
writing  here,  he  would  have  been  notorious,  but  not 
great,  but  he  did  not  stop,  for  either  growing  up  or 
perhaps  receiving  a  hint  of  the  Emperor's  disapproval 
(and  there  is  abundant  evidence  of  Augustus'  indirect 
yet  coercive  influence  on  the  poets  of  the  day),  Ovid 
now  turned  to  narrative  poetry  and  wrote  the  Meta- 
morphoses, those  sparkling  stories  which  retell  the  old 
Greek  mythology,  and  the  Fasti,  a  religious  calendar 
with  accounts  by  months  of  the  Roman  festivals  to  the 
gods.  This,  his  most  serious  work,  was  his  occupation 
when  the  Great  Blow  fell  upon  him. 

There  are  no  remarkable  events  in  Ovid's  life  from 
43  B.  C.  to  8  A.  D.  It  is  simply  the  story  of  a  Roman 
gentleman  in  comfortable  circumstances  who  had  been 
completely  weaned  from  his  simple  birthplace  in  the 
cold  mountains,  who  had  made  a  stir  in  the  Roman  lit- 
erary world,  was  a  friend  of  all  the  writers  of  the  day, 
and  who,  moreover,  because  of  the  gaiety  of  his  tem- 
perament and  the  brilliant  immorality  of  his  poetry  was 


200  Italy  Old  and  New 

a  social  lion  in  the  fashionable  fast  young  set  in  the  capi- 
tal.   Then  suddenly  he  was  sent  into  exile. 

The  blow  fell  without  warning.  Ovid  was  in  Elba, 
when  an  imperial  edict  ordered  him  to  Tomi,  a  small 
town  in  a  barbarian  country  on  the  western  coast  of  the 
Black  Sea,  a  twelve  month  journey  from  Rome.  The 
sentence  was  technically  one  of  relegatio  not  exs ilium 
so  that  he  did  not  lose  his  property,  nor  his  rights  as  a 
Roman  citizen,  but  these  were  slight  compensations  for 
the  separation  from  the  gaiety  of  Rome.  The  sen- 
tence changed  the  dashing  poet  to  a  dejected  valitudi- 
narian,  transformed  his  trifling  love  verses  and  his  bril- 
liant narratives  into  gloomy  elegiacs  with  but  three 
themes,  apology  for  his  fault,  pictures  of  his  dreary  lot, 
prayers  for  his  restoration. 

Although  in  his  writings  Ovid  alludes  to  his  banish- 
ment time  and  again,  he  never  drops  the  slightest  cue 
as  to  the  certain  reason  for  it.  Once  he  declares  that 
the  reasons  for  his  unhappiness  are  a  poem  and  a  mis- 
take, and  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  his  poem  was 
"The  Art  of  Love"  although  it  had  been  published  six 
years  before,  but  its  seductive  and  immoral  instructions 
in  coquetry,  directed  to  both  men  and  women,  were 
against  all  the  principles  of  Augustus'  moral  reforms, 
and  the  Emperor  must  have  looked  long  with  suspicion 
upon  a  poet  who  could  so  completely  disregard  even  the 
conventional  morality  of  the  age.  To  fathom  what  'the 
mistake'  was  is  difficult  enough  to  demand  the  talents 
of  a  Sherlock  Holmes  or  Scotland  Yard.  Although 
all  manner  of  conjectures  have  been  made,  the  most 
probable  theory  is  that  Ovid  was  involved  in  some  way 
in  the  affair  of  Augustus'  grand-daughter,  Julia,  who 
was  exiled  for  adultery  the  very  year  that  Ovid  was 
banished.      An    Emperor    whose     sternness     spared 


Ovid  in  Sulmona  201 

neither  his  own  daughter,  nor  his  grand-daughter 
would  hardly  have  forgiven  a  poet  whose  lax  moral 
tone  had  already  offended  him  in  case  the  poet  was 
found  guilty  of  connivance  with  the  lovers. 

Whatever  the  cause,  the  sentence  of  exile  fell  and 
after  a  dreary  year  of  travelling,  Ovid  reached  the  des- 
olate land  of  his  banishment.  He  was  a  prey  not  only 
to  the  loneliness  of  separation  from  family  and  friends 
but  also  according  to  his  letters  to  the  depression  of  a 
severe  and  exhausting  climate.  Yet  the  distinguished 
Scotch  geologist,  Sir  Archibald  Geikie,  says  he  finds  it 
difficult  to  repress  a  smile  when  "the  poet  writes  of 
Tomi  as  if  it  lay  in  the  Arctic  regions,  and  speaks  of 
hard  Fate  ordering  him  to  die  under  the  icy  pole.  It 
is  true  that  the  temperature  in  the  coldest  part  of  win- 
ter falls  there  below  the  freezing-point,  but  so  it  does 
in  the  uplands  of  the  poet's  Abruzzi.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  summers  at  Tomi  are  as  warm  as  in  the  cen- 
tre of  France."  So  some  of  the  miseries  of  exile  were 
perhaps  a  poet's  pose,  but  still  I  believe  that  Ovid 
never  wanted  to  go  back  to  Sulmo  just  because  of  that 
cold  air  which  he  often  decries.  And  here  in  Tomi  the 
language  too  was  strange,  a  rugged  Getic  which  re- 
pelled him  as  he  learned  it,  so  he  had  no  audience  who 
could  listen  to  his  poems,  worst  of  fates  for  a  literary 
egoist.  As  long  as  Augustus  lived,  Ovid  hoped  for  a 
mitigation  of  his  sentence  but  with  the  succession  of  the 
harsh,  uncompromising  Tiberius  he  gave  up  hope  and 
in  three  years  died  of  a  broken  heart. 

What  did  Sulmo  think  of  Ovid's  exile?  It  was  very 
human  and  right  that  when  the  blow  fell,  Ovid  thought 
first  of  all  of  his  parents  and  rejoiced  that  both  had  died 
before  the  pain  of  this  news  came  to  their  ears.  Then 
with  a  sudden  fear,  he  exclaims : 


202  Italy  Old  and  New 

"Yet  if  aught  but  names  remains  to  the  dead,  and 
if  the  delicate  spirit  escapes  the  funeral  pyre,  if  my 
story  has  reached  you,  O  shades  of  my  parents,  and  the 
charges  against  me  are  noised  abroad  in  the  forum  by 
the  Styx,  know,  I  pray,  that  the  cause  of  my  enforced 
exile — it  is  right  that  you  should  know — is  a  mistake, 
not  a  crime."  So  solemnly  he  swears  to  the  dead.  But 
how  in  the  forum  of  Sulmo  must  the  country  gossips 
have  discussed  what  could  have  been  "the  mistake."  I 
can  imagine  how  at  the  end  of  their  conjectures  some 
genial  old  greybeard  would  say:  "Well,  Ovid  belongs 
to  us.  I  knew  his  father  and  mother  and  they  were 
very  nice  people.  Too  bad  the  older  son,  who  was  such 
a  promising  young  lawyer,  died.  Ovid  was  always  a 
little  wild  and  only  a  poet,  but  they  say  he  has  made  a 
great  stir  in  Rome.  And  he  always  spoke  well  of 
Sulmo.     I  think  the  Emperor  is  a  trifle  severe." 

And  little  by  little,  as  the  years  went  on,  the  feeling 
would  grow  that  the  son  of  the  Paelignian  country  had 
been  made  a  martyr  and  the  aroused  sense  of  injustice 
would  canonize  Ovid  in  his  birthplace.  So  saints  are 
often  made.  Hereupon,  I  took  out  my  Ovid  and  looked 
over  the  echoes  of  Sulmo  in  his  poetry.  Its  cool  air 
and  its  many  streams,  he  sings,  and  the  fertility  of  well- 
watered  earth  for  grain  and  grape  and  olive  and  the 
deep  lush  grass  by  the  rivers,  but  in  this  youthful  poem 
(Amores  2,  16)  which  purports  to  have  been  written 
in  Sulmo  and  contains  his  longest  description  of  his 
birthplace,  he  has  naught  good  to  say  of  the  two  mag- 
nificent mountain-ranges  on  either  side  of  the  valley, 
only  upbraids  them  as  barriers  between  himself  and  his 
absent  Lady.  When  he  begs  her  to  mount  her  pony- 
carriage  and  hasten  to  him,  he  adds : 

"But  you,  ye  towering  mountains,  when  she  shall 


Ovid  in  Sulmona  203 

come,  subside  and  be  easy  roadways  in  the  sloping 
vales." 

Some  pride  in  his  town  Ovid  shows,  for  he  boasts 
that  Sulmo  is  a  third  part  of  the  whole  Paelignian  dis- 
trict and  he  would  give  it,  as  well  as  Rome  and  Tibur 
and  Tusculum,  a  Trojan  founder, — "Solymus,  Aeneas' 
one  companion  from  Phrygian  Ida,  from  whom  the 
walls  of  Sulmo  take  their  name,  cool  Sulmo,  my  coun- 
try. Woe  is  me  !  How  far  is  Sulmo  from  this  Scythian 
land!" 

One  touch  of  homesickness  for  the  little  town !  Usu- 
ally in  his  exile  it  is  great  Rome,  the  City  for  which  he 
longs,  and  even  on  his  sad  birthday-anniversary  in 
Tomi,  he  thinks  of  his  first  birthday  in  Sulmo  only  to 
wish,  from  his  misery,  that  it  might  have  been  his  last. 
But  for  Ovid's  temperament  people  had  more  hold 
than  places  and  with  father,  mother  and  brother  dead, 
and  wife  and  daughter  in  Rome,  his  thoughts  fly  to  that 
second  home  as  well  as  to  all  his  more  general  satisfac- 
tions in  the  life  of  the  great  city,  and  sincere  and  simple 
at  last,  he  writes  a  letter  to  Perilla  (we  believe  she  is 
his  daughter)  that  is  most  touching. 

I  had  in  my  mind  both  Ovid's  feeling  for  his 
daughter  and  her  youth,  and  his  own  boyish  affection 
for  his  brother,  and  for  his  Sweetheart  across  the 
mountains,  as  in  the  light  of  a  full  moon  the  train 
stopped  in  the  tiny  station  of  Sulmona.  I  had  not 
gathered  from  Ovid  or  from  anything  I  had  read  that 
the  beauty  of  the  spot  would  be  its  own  reward,  but  as 
I  drove  up  the  long  road  from  station  to  town,  I  drew 
an  enraptured  breath  over  the  two  snow-capped  ranges 
and  the  two  poplar-bordered  rivers  between  which  the 
long  narrow  town  stretched  out  before  me  in  the  radi- 
ant, white  moonlight.    My  delight  was  prosaically  com- 


204  Italy  Old  and  New 

plete  when  I  found  that  the  modest  hotel  Italia  had 
steam-heat  to  ward  off  Taelignian  chills.' 

It  was  viol  to  car  at  t eristic o  of  Ovid's  birthplace  that 
it  seemed  full  of  courteous  young  Italian  men  who  were 
ready  to  act  as  my  guides  and  answer  my  inquiries,  and 
I  saw  the  country  that  first  evening  in  a  glorious  walk 
under  the  kind  escort  of  a  Tenente  of  twenty-three  on 
his  way  to  Aquila,  where  he  had  been  transferred  for 
the  sake  of  his  health,  I  conjectured,  as  on  the  train  I 
watched  his  worn  face  and  listened  to  his  story  of  fight- 
ing at  Monte  Grappa,  the  Corso,  the  Piave,  and  of  his 
five  wounds.  Then  the  next  morning  a  stunning  lad 
in  a  black  cape  hunted  up  for  me  the  house  of  the  Pro- 
fessor who  held  the  keys  of  the  little  Museum  and  when 
he  saw  my  disappointment  on  learning  that  the  Museum 
could  not  be  opened  because  the  Professor  was  very  ill, 
he  invited  me  by  way  of  compensation  to  walk  twenty 
miles  over  the  mountains  with  him  to  Scanno.  I  could 
hardly  bear  to  postpone  that  pleasure. 

The  town  of  Sulmona  even  by  daylight  is  as  pictur- 
esque as  its  setting  is  romantic,  a  city  of  beautiful  doors, 
I  dub  it,  as  I  look  over  my  photographs  of  the  Gothic 
portal  of  the  Cathedral  of  San  Panfilo  where  two 
Roman-Ionic  columns  standing  on  beasties  support 
bishops,  and  the  Gothic-Renaissance  door  of  the 
Palazzo  S.  Maria  Annunziata,  or  the  lovely  rounded 
arch  of  the  chiesa  of  S.  Francesco  which  is  only  a  door 
now,  all  the  church  destroyed  except  this  beautiful  por- 
tal opening  into  the  meat-market,  and  the  door  in  the 
Palazzo  Tabassi  which  bears  so  proudly  the  maker's 
name : 

"Mastro  Pietro  da  Como  fece  questa  porta  1448." 
And  as  interesting  as  the  doorways  and  more  mag- 


SULMONA 


OVID   |\    SULMONA 


Ovid  in  Sulmona  205 

nificent  is  the  great  Piazza  Garibaldi  with  its  aqueduct 
of  the  pointed  arches  across  one  end,  at  the  other,  out- 
lined against  snow-capped  mountains,  the  exquisite  lit- 
tle church  of  S.  Agostino,  and  in  the  center  the  great 
Renaissance  fountain.  The  Piazza  was  full  of  color 
for  on  the  steps  going  up  to  the  Aqueduct  the  market 
is  held  and  country  women  in  picturesque  costumes  were 
selling  oranges  from  piles  of  brilliant  fruit  massed  on 
long  stands.  Yet  all  the  beauty  of  mountains,  rivers 
and  picturesque  buildings  had  not  so  much  charm  for 
me  as  a  rather  dilapidated  school  house  with  an  in- 
scription above  the  door  that  read  "Collegio  Ovidio." 
I  went  into  the  courtyard  and  there  to  my  joy  found 
Ovid  himself,  a  fifteenth  century  Ovid  in  long  straight 
robe,  very  prim,  virtuous  and  saintly,  clasping  to  his 
breast  the  city's  emblem,  a  tablet  with  the  letters  S.  M. 
P.  E.  for  his  own  words, 

Sulmo  mihi  patria  est. 

I  photographed  him  above  a  group  of  vigorous  little 
smiling  school-boys,  potential  Ovids,  who  might  some 
day  go  to  Rome  to  make  of  life  success  or  failure. 
Would  they,  I  wonder,  plunge  from  the  cold,  bracing 
Paelignian  air  and  the  hardy  life  of  the  Abruzzi  into 
luxury  and  frivolity  and  dissipation  which  would  ener- 
vate them  to  less  than  their  best?  What  can  Italy, 
what  can  America  do  to  protect  in  city  life  the  vigor 
and  the  virtue  of  her  country  sons? 

Even  in  that  reflective  moment,  I  seemed  to  belittle 
the  right  that  Sulmona  has  to  be  proud  of  her  brilliant 
alumnus  who  in  his  greatest  work  re-vivified  the 
Graeco-Roman  myths  and  through  the  Metamorphoses 
was  preeminently  the  Latin  poet  who  influenced  the  art 
jand  literature  of  the  Renaissance.    I  will  confess  that  / 


206  Italy  Old  and  New 

love  best  of  all  in  Ovid  the  traces  of  the  country  that 
remain, — the  picture  of  the  river  in  flood  that  kept  him 
from  his  Love,  the  prayer  of  the  shepherd  to  the  Italian 
goddess  Pales,  and  the  account  of  the  pious  old  couple 
who  unaware  entertained  a  god.  To  me  none  of  Ovid's 
other  works  has  the  charm  of  the  Baucis  and  Philemon 
story  and  I  think  that  picture  of  the  simple  home,  the 
life-long  devotion,  and  the  religious  faith  of  two  old 
peasants  was  created  out  of  the  heart  of  the  Abruzzi 
mountains.  Re-reading  that,  I  am  more  than  willing 
to  fulfill  Ovid's  wish  to  confer  glory  on  Sulmona  by  his 
fame  and  to  quote  his  words : 

"May  some  stranger  looking  at  the  walls  of  well- 
watered  Sulmo  which  enclose  few  acres  of  land  exclaim : 
'O  walls  which  could  produce  so  great  a  poet,  however 
little  you  are,  I  call  you  great'  " 


XVI 

VERGIL   AS    A    GUIDE    IN   ITALY 

IN  my  year  in  Italy  as  I  found  time  to  read  with 
leisure  and  to  select  among  my  old  literary  friends 
the  companionship  of  those  who  had  most  to  give 
me,  the  one  who  was  oftenest  by  my  side  was  Vergil. 
As  I  lingered  by  the  Italian  lakes,  walked  through  olive- 
groves  and  vineyards,  climbed  to  ancient  walls  encir- 
cling hilltops,  looked  at  prehistoric  weapons  in  mu- 
seums, stood  on  the  Campidoglio  in  Rome,  the  lines 
of  Vergil  constantly  running  through  my  mind  finally 
made  me  recognize  that  for  me  as  for  Dante,  the  poet 
had  become  the  guide  who  bearing  the  golden  branch 
to  singing  men  allowed  was  leading  me  to  the  heart  of 
old  and  new  Italy.  Let  me  show  you  by  rambling  jot- 
tings, light  reminiscences,  and  pictures  of  the  country 
where  I  read  Vergil,  how  the  Augustan  poet  is  a  better 
guide  than  Baedeker  to  the  spirit  of  Italy. 

On  August  ninth  I  started  from  Mantua  in  search  of 
Vergil's  birth-place.  The  road  to  Pietole  was  intoler- 
ably hot  and  dusty  so  that  there  was  little  poetry  about 
the  train  ride  and  alighting  at  Pietole  I  could  not  see  or 
hear  the  water  of  the  great  Mincius  which  slowly  winds 
and  wanders,  fringing  his  banks  with  delicate  reeds. 
Yet  there  in  a  tiny  green  enclosure  towered  a  statue  of 
the  poet  and  while  a  midget  of  a  girl  ran  to  hunt  the 
key  to  the  park's  iron  gate,  I  was  made  welcome  in  the 
kitchen  of  the  Albergo  Virg'il'io  at  the  roadside.    Never 

207 


208  Italy  Old  and  New 

before  had  I  been  part  of  such  a  genre  picture.  In  a 
great  niche-hearth  over  live  coals  a  huge  black,  pot 
hung  simmering.  The  wall  cupboard  was  full  of  bright 
wine-bottles.  My  hostess,  the  cook,  a  jolly,  fat,  swarthy 
woman  was  preparing  dinner  at  a  long  table  littered 
with  meat  and  vegetables  and  as  she  threw  bits  of  food 
to  the  dog  and  cat  at  her  feet,  she  addressed  gay  frag- 
ments of  Italian  to  me.  All  I  could  think  of  was  Ver- 
gil's Copa  if  indeed  we  may  now  believe  that  this 
and  other  minor  poems  are  Vergil's  early  work.  Cer- 
tainly the  Copa  seemed  written  there  in  Andes. 

"Syrisca,  the  inn-keeper,  wearing  on  her  head  a 
Greek  kerchief,  taught  to  move  her  swaying  body  with 
the  click  of  her  castanets,  half-drunk  and  wholly  wan- 
ton, dances  in  the  smoky  tavern,  beating  her  loud- 
voiced  bits  of  wood  against  her  elbow  and  crying: 
'What's  the  joy  of  staying  outside  in  summer's  dust 
when  you  are  tired?  Why  not  rather  lie  on  this  soft 
grassy  bed?'  " 

I  did  not  stay  inside  to  eat  her  cheeses,  waxen  plums, 
chestnuts  and  sweetly  blushing  apples,  but  soon  stood 
alone  in  the  green  park  before  the  noble  statue  of  Ver- 
gil that  towers  up  between  two  slim  poplars.  There  on 
the  base  I  read  how  Pietole  had  erected  this  monument 
in  1884  and  the  inscriptions  they  had  carved  on  it: 

Primus  idumeas  referam  tibi  Mantua  palmas, 

"First  I  will  bring  back  to  thee,  Mantua,  the  palm  of  Idumasa." 

Et  nunc  servat  honos  sedem  tuum, 

"And  now  your  own  honor  guards  your  home." 

Then,  too,  I  read  the  magnificent  address  which  Car- 
ducci  delivered  here  for  the  unveiling  of  the  statue  and 


Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy       209 

heard  the  Italian  poet  interpret  to  the  people  of  the 
country  Vergil's  old-new  message. 

"I  will  take  the  poet,"  said  he,  "away  from  the 
schools  of  the  learned,  from  the  academies  of  the  schol- 
ars, from  the  halls  of  the  powerful,  and  I  will  restore 
him  to  you,  O  people  of  farms  and  of  laborers,  O  true 
people  of  Italy.  He  is  always  yours,  your  spirit:  he 
is  a  brother  of  old,  a  countryman,  a  farmer,  an  Italian 
workman  who  from  the  banks  of  the  Mincio  ascended 
to  the  Campidoglio  and  from  the  Campidoglio  to 
Olympus."  Then,  to  those  fellow-countrymen  of  the 
poet's  he  poured  out  Vergil's  glorification  of  labor  on 
the  land  and  of  the  staunch  support  for  Italy,  the  great 
mother,  that  the  countryman  can  give. 

"Here  once,"  he  ended,  "here  once  among  the  songs 
of  children,  among  the  peaceful  lowing  of  oxen,  in 
scenes  of  beauty,  of  strength,  of  tranquillity,  I  felt  in 
my  heart  the  spirit  of  Vergil  and  I  kept  saying:  'O  Ital- 
ians, elevate  and  free  agriculture.  Bring  peace  to  the 
country  side.  Chase  famine  from  the  furrows,  disease 
from  the  bodies,  ignorance  from  the  spirit.  Bring 
peace  to  the  countryside  and  the  laborers.  And  the 
Roman  eagle  again  shall  spread  its  wings  and  guide 
over  the  mountains  and  over  the  seas  our  power  and  the 
victorious  arms  of  Italy.'  " 

One  cannot  find  any  site  for  Vergil's  farm  that  sat- 
isfies the  imagination  as  does  the  valley  of  the  Licenza 
for  Horace's  Sabine  refuge.  Perhaps  the  configura- 
tion of  the  Mantuan  country  has  changed  and  indeed 
Vergil  gives  but  a  slight  sketch  of  the  spot — "where  the 
hills  begin  to  rise,  then  lower  their  ridge  in  a  gentle 
slope  even  to  the  water  and  the  aged  beeches,  points 
now  shattered." 

But  the  eclogues  which  describe  the  heart-broken  mis- 


210  Italy  Old  and  New 

ery  of  the  dispossessed  peasant  are  records  not  only  of 
Vergil's  love  for  his  birthplace,  but  an  expression  for 
all  time  of  the  devotion  of  the  contadino  to  the  land 
and  the  tragedy  of  war  that  wrests  him  from  the  soil. 
The  first  eclogue  had  a  new  poignancy  read  during  the 
Great  War  when  exiles  from  the  Trentino  and  Friulia 
were  pouring  down  towards  Rome :  Meliboeus'  lament 
was  so  tragically  true. 

"Ah !  Shall  I  ever  again  in  time  far  distant  marvel  at 
my  country's  bounds,  at  the  turf-covered  roof  of  my 
poor  hut,  seeing  my  realm, — a  few  harvests?  Shall 
a  godless  soldier  possess  these  acres,  so  carefully 
tended?    Shall  a  barbarian  possess  these  crops?" 

In  these  recent  years  as  in  Vergil's  time,  the  mitigat- 
ing circumstances  of  the  horrors  of  war  have  been  the 
Italian's  faith  in  Rome — "rearing  her  head  as  high 
among  other  cities  as  the  cypress  towers  above  the  low 
bushes"  (Ec.  1,  24-5),  and  the  friendly  hospitality  of 
brother  to  brother.  In  Italy  Tityrus  still  says  to  Meli- 
boeus: 

"This  night  at  least  you  could  rest  with  me  on  bed 
of  green  leaves.  I  have  ripe  apples,  mealy  chestnuts, 
pressed  cheeses  in  abundance;  and  now  the  smoke  rises 
from  the  highest  roofs  of  the  houses  near,  and  the 
longer  shadows  fall  from  the  high  mountains"  (Ec.  1, 
79-83). 

The  city  of  Mantua  at  first  seemed  to  me  to  have 
naught  to  do  with  our  poet.  The  Mincius  spreads  out 
about  it  in  flat,  shallow  lakes,  mud-edged.  The  build- 
ings display  the  magnificence  of  the  d'Estes  and  Gon- 
zagas.  Yet  I  knew  that  a  yearly  fete  in  honor  of  Vergil 
showed  that  the  city  did  not  forget  the  ancient  asso- 
ciations of  its  name,  and  at  last  in  my  walking  I  came 
upon  Vergil  himself  in  the  little  Piazza  del  Broletto,  a 


VERGIL    IX    MANTUA 


Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy        211 

thirteenth  century  niche-monument  in  the  wall  of  a  pal- 
ace, the  quaintest  and  happiest  figure,  lifting  from  his 
reading  a  smile  to  all  Mantua. 

I  had  expected  to  find  Vergil  in  Mantua.  I  had  not 
realized  that  all  through  Italy  his  words  would  be  the 
perfect  expression  of  the  country  life  that  I  saw  in  my 
walks.  Yet  he  was  ever  with  me.  When  I  climbed 
Soracte  on  the  rocky  path  under  the  strong  old  olives  I 
remembered : 

"Hard  lands  and  unfriendly  hills  where  there  is  thin 
clay  and  a  pebbly  soil,  in  fields  of  low  bushes,  take  de- 
light in  Pallas'  grove  of  long-lived  olive-trees."  Cumae 
with  its  vineyards  reminded  me  of  how  Bacchus  loves 
the  open  hills  (Georg.  2,  112-3)  and  as  I  ate  the  sweet- 
est of  golden  grapes  on  the  curving  slope  below  the 
town  of  Nemi  above  Diana's  mirror-water,  I  read : 

"A  rich  soil,  fortunate  in  sweet  moisture,  abounding 
in  verdure,  a  level  richly  fertile  (such  as  we  often  look 
down  on  in  a  mountain  nook)  where  from  the  rocks 
above  the  streams  run  down,  bringing  fertile  earth,  such 
a  soil  will  make  strong  vines  flowing  with  the  wealth  of 
the  grape"  (Georg.  2,  184-190).  In  the  irrigated 
grain-fields  of  the  Lombard  plain,  I  saw  the  peasant 
who  "after  scattering  the  seed  joins  in  combat  with  the 
soil  and  levels  the  hillocks  of  unfertile  sand,  then  brings 
to  his  crops  the  obedient  rivulets."  And  when,  near 
every  little  Tuscan  town,  I  saw  the  gardens  that  Italian 
thrift  works  out  of  a  tiny  plot  of  land,  I  thought  of  the 
one  where  Simylus,  the  rustic  worker  of  a  small  farm, 
gathered  the  various  herbs  which  he  pounded  into  his 
famous  dish  of  moretum.  I  had  seen  all  his  store  be- 
hind many  a  sheltering  fence  of  osiers  and  slender 
reeds,  the  cabbage  and  the  beets,  the  lettuce  and  the 
pointed  radish,  the  swelling  gourds,  the  red  onion  and 


212  Italy  Old  and  New 

the  garlic,  and  I  had  seen  how  such  a  garden,  small  in 
extent  but  rich  in  various  herbs,  made  its  master  lack 
nothing  that  a  poor  man's  need  demands.  Then  the 
flowers!  How  many  times  near  some  bright  patch  of 
color  I  thought  of  the  old  Corycian  gardener  in  the 
Georgics  (4,  125-146),  who  in  his  few  acres,  not  rich 
enough  for  plough,  or  flocks,  or  vines,  made  white  lilies 
blossom  and  the  slender  poppy,  roses  and  soft  hya- 
cinths, and  who  with  his  flowers,  his  fruit-trees  and  his 
honey-bees  felt  himself  as  rich  as  princes. 

The  bees!  It  is  not  only  Hymettus  that  still  yields 
his  honied  wealth !  In  Italy  today  where  sugar  is  still 
scarce  and  costly,  the  honey  is  especially  a  gift  from 
heaven — 

aerii  mellis  caelestia  dona 
(Georg.  4,  1). 

But  always  with  the  olive  and  the  grape-vine,  the  honey- 
bee has  been  part  of  Italy's  wealth.  And  it  was  Vergil 
who  once  for  all  the  world,  centuries  before  Maeter- 
linck, wrote  the  Epic  of  the  Bees.  Who  can  forget  his 
heroic  strains  of  the  little  folk,  their  home-making, 
their  communal  life,  their  industry,  their  illnesses,  their 
valiant  fighting,  their  loyal  devotion  to  their  sovereign? 
Vergil's  life  of  the  bees  is  an  epyllion  within  an  epic, 
immortalizing  the  glory  of  the  honey-makers. 

This  gift  of  throwing  a  golden  aureole  about  the 
commonplace  Vergil  used  also  for  the  animals.  Not 
that  he  canonized  them,  but  his  vignettes  portray  them 
with  a  sympathy  that  strikes  an  answering  chord  and 
makes  the  lines  reecho  in  Italy  as  we  see  "the  ox  groan- 
ing over  the  deep-driven  plough"  (Georg.  1,  45-6),  the 
pitiful  mother  goat,  who,  driven  into  exile  with  her 
master,  in  hard  travail  had  lost  twins  on  bare  rocks 


Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy       213 

(Ec.  1,  14-5),  the  sheep  and  the  goats  called  by 
zephyr's  breezes  in  joyous  summer  to  the  glades  and 
meadows  and  cool  streams  (Georg.  3,  322-3),  the  slow 
little  donkey,  his  sides  overladen  with  oil  or  cheap 
fruits  (Georg.  1,  273-4),  who  sweats  so  wearily  and 
should  be  spared,  for  he  is  Vesta's  darling  (Copa  25- 
6).  There  is  incorporate  the  tenderness  of  the  Bibli- 
cal treatment  of  the  sparrow, — "Not  one  of  them  falls 
to  the  ground  without  His  knowledge." 

These  flashes  of  sympathy  are  turned  not  only  on 
the  beasts,  but  on  their  master.  Take,  for  example,  the 
part  the  winds  play  in  a  peasant's  life.  I  never  thought 
much  about  the  effect  of  weather  on  fortune  until  in 
Dalmatia  I  saw  granite  mountain  sides  that  had  been 
stripped  of  vegetation  by  the  terrible  Bora  and  in 
Fiume  witnessed  that  northern  blast  suddenly  smite 
the  water  in  the  quiet  harbor  to  cause  turmoil  of  wave 
and  air.  The  Sirocco,  too,  has  its  lesser,  but  nerve- 
racking  horrors.  I  see  now  why  Vergil  wrote  of  how 
he  himself  had  seen  all  the  battling  of  the  winds  and 
why  he  bade  the  farmer  watch  the  weather-signs.  As 
old  Hesiod  knew,  works  in  the  country  now  and  always 
must  be  governed  by  days  and  he  is  a  poor  farmer  who 
does  not  protect  his  crops  from  the  blight  and  his 
beasts  from  the  disease  that  bad  weather  may  bring  in 
its  train. 

Vergil  makes  us  see  all  the  difficulties,  all  the  hard 
labor  of  the  Italian  peasant's  life,  but  he  shows  us  more 
than  that  in  it.  "Fortunate,"  he  says,  "is  he  who  knows 
the  rural  gods,  Pan  and  old  Silvanus,  and  the  sister 
nymphs.  Superbly  content  with  his  lot,  the  farmer 
does  not  pity  the  poor  man  or  envy  the  rich.  .  .  . 
He  breaks  the  earth  with  crooked  plough.  With  this 
is  the  year's  work,  with  this  he  supports  his  country 


214  Italy  Old  and  New 

and  his  little  grand-children,  with  this  his  herds  of  cat- 
tle and  his  noble  bullocks.  Always  the  year  yields 
wealth  of  apples,  younglings  of  the  flock  and  sheaves  of 
Ceres'  grains,  loading  the  furrows  with  increase  and 
bursting  the  granaries.  Winter  comes :  the  olive  is 
crushed  in  the  stones,  the  happy  swine  come  in  from 
their  acorns,  the  woods  give  arbutus-berries,  autumn 
drops  varied  fruits  and  high  on  sunny  rocks  ripens  the 
luscious  grape.  Meanwhile  dear  children  come  throng- 
ing for  his  kisses.  His  pure  home  guards  its  honor. 
His  cows  yield  rich  milk.  The  fat  kids  in  happy  pas- 
tures playfully  contend  with  butting  horns.  The  farmer 
himself  makes  holiday  and  full  length  on  the  grass  in 
a  group  about  a  fire  where  his  friends  crown  the  bowl, 
with  a  libation  he  calls  on  thee,  god  of  the  wine-press" 
(Georg.  2,  493-4,  499,  513-29). 

The  worst  charge  that  Vergil  has  against  war  is  that 
it  destroys  such  joys  as  these:  "the  plow  receives  no 
fitting  honor,  the  lands  bereft  of  cultivators  lie  waste, 
and  the  curved  pruning-knives  are  beaten  into  stiff 
swords"  (Georg.  1,  506-8).  This  same  call  to  the 
plow  has  been  coupled  with  the  call  of  the  sea  by  the 
great  poet  of  Italy's  last  war,  D'Annunzio: 

"Italia,  Italia 
sacra  alia  nuova  aurora 
con  l'aratro  e  la  prora." 

In  Italy  one  reads  Vergil  not  only  for  his  picture  of 
the  Italian  peasant's  daily  life  in  which  the  poet's  slo- 
gan 'back  to  the  land'  aided  Augustus'  great  work  of 
reconstruction.  As  the  traveller  in  Italy  gives  himself 
up  little  by  little  to  the  spell  of  the  divine  and  ageless 
beauty  which  no  scar9  of  conflict  have  marred,  no  in- 
dustrial struggles  have  defaced,  he  remembers  that  to 


Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy       215 

Vergil  perhaps  beyond  all  other  poets  the  Muses 
vouchsafed  a  perfect  song  of  the  glories  of  his  native 
land,  and  those  unforgettable  lines  from  the  second 
Georgic  return : 

"This  land  .  .  .  heavy  crops  and  Bacchus'  Massic 
wine  enrich ;  this  land  is  the  home  of  the  olive-tree  and 
the  happy  herds.  .  .  .  Here  is  eternal  spring  and  sum- 
mer in  months  not  her  own.  Twice  a  year  the  sheep 
give  birth  to  their  young,  twice  a  year  the  apple-tree 
yields  its  fruit."  I  gathered  pink  cyclamen  and  straw- 
berries by  Lake  Nemi  in  November,  saw  baby  lambs 
gamboling  in  the  Campagna  in  December,  and  found 
roses  blossoming  outdoors  for  Christmas. 

"Then  reflect,  too,  on  the  famous  cities,  the  towns 
piled  high  by  human  hands  on  lofty  crags,  the  rivers 
flowing  under  ancient  walls."  We  climbed  to  the  mag- 
nificent site  of  Norba,  never  rebuilt  since  Sulla's  time, 
to  cool  Praeneste,  to  lofty  Tusculum,  but  your  minds 
outstrip  my  words  as  you  think  of  all  the  hill-towns  in 
Italy  and  the  rivers  flowing  by. 

"Then  the  seas,"  Vergil  continues.  "Shall  I  sing 
of  the  twain  that  wash  the  upper  and  the  lower  shore?" 
His  words  start  my  mind  off  on  a  boat  with  a  golden 
sail,  on  which  I  coasted  along  the  eastern  shore  from 
Nero's  palace  at  Anzio  to  Cicero's  villa  at  Astura. 
Then  my  kaleidoscope  shifts  and  I  am  crossing  the 
Adriatic  from  the  lovely  curving  harbor  of  Ancona  to 
Italian  Zara  with  her  jewelled  islands  and  her  white 
mountains.  Then  Vergil  rushes  me  on  to  other  memo- 
ries,— the  great  lakes  "thee  Larius,  greatest  of  all,  and 
thee,  Benacus,  rising  with  the  waves  and  the  roar  of 
the  ocean,"  and  I  dream  of  a  day  on  Como  and  a  week 
at  Lago  di  Garda  where  the  Lydian  laughter  of  the 
turquoise  water  made  me  glad  under  the  olives  that  all 


216  Italy  Old  and  New 

Benacus  is  now  Italian.  Again  my  guide  shifts  my 
memory  to  the  Lucrine  and  the  Avernus,  wrought  for 
Julius  Caesar  into  one  great  harbor.  But  this  wealth 
of  earth's  products  and  this  glory  of  her  beauty  is  not 
all  of  Italy's  treasure:  the  strength  of  Italy  then  as 
always  is  in  her  people  and  Vergil  ends  proudly  with 
her  vigorous  tribes  and  her  great  heroes,  greeting  his 
country  at  last  as  the  eternal  mother  of  earth's  bless- 
ings and  of  mortal  men: 

"Salve  magna  parens  frugum  Saturnia  tellus, 
magna  virum." 

(Georg.  2,  136-174  in  part.) 

A  poet  is  naturally  a  guide  to  beauty,  but  not  so  often 
an  antiquarian.  Yet  to  Vergil  as  often  as  to  Livy  I 
turned  for  the  early  history  of  Rome  and  it  was  he  who 
led  my  feet  to  many  a  site.  It  would  be  a  wonderful 
thing  if  one  could  land  in  Italy  at  Cumae  where  the 
Greeks  first  came  and  where  Aeneas  first  glided  upon 
the  Hesperian  shore.  That  being  impossible  I  went 
out  from  Naples  and  walked  up  the  narrow  foot-path 
through  the  terraced  vineyards  to  the  height  over  which 
Apollo  in  his  lofty  seat  presided.  Little  remains  of 
Cumae's  historic  past:  a  Roman  road,  broken  pieces  of 
statues  and  carved  marble,  a  temple  platform,  but  the 
place  has  its  awe  and  there  is  a  cave  where  many  steps 
ascend  to  a  sacred  seat  and  secret  passage  cut  in  the 
dark  heart  of  the  mountain.  In  its  atmosphere  one 
thinks  only  of  the  frenzied  Sibyl,  the  expectant  Trojan, 
the  immanent  god. 

We  could  not  follow  Aeneas  to  Avernus,  but  we  saw 
Misenum  and  Gaeta  to  which  the  death  of  nurse  Caieta 
gave  eternal  fame  and  we  went  for  Aeneas'  sake  to  the 
shore  of  Circe's  land.     Monte  Circeo  is  a  day's  trip 


Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy        217 

from  Terracina.  One  jogs  slowly  in  carriage  over 
rough  country  roads,  crossing  marshes  and  little  rivers, 
passing  the  capanne  villages  where  the  prehistoric  life 
of  Italy  is  reproduced  in  the  straw  huts  of  today  and 
finally  one  alights  at  the  tiny  walled  village  of  Sant' 
Oreste,  part  way  up  the  hill.  The  walk  from  there  up 
the  mountain  was  magical  though  we  heard  not  the 
ceaseless  singing  of  the  daughter  of  the  Sun  nor  the 
angry  roaring  of  the  lions  and  the  howling  of  the 
wolves  and  the  snorting  of  the  swine,  her  transformed 
victims.  We  gathered  sprigs  of  pink  heather  for  amu- 
lets in  lieu  of  Odysseus'  moly  and  safely  reaching  the 
top  of  the  narrow  ridge  enjoyed  its  double  view  of  the 
sea. 

Another  height,  too,  we  scaled  from  Terracina  for 
Vergil's  sake,  Monte  Angelo,  where  "Jupiter  of  Anxur 
watched  over  the  fields"  and  from  that  magnificent  tem- 
ple precinct  looked  down  on  the  green  grove  where 
Feronia  may  have  presided  and  Satura's  low-lying  black 
marsh  and  the  chill  river  Ufens  winding  its  way 
through  the  valley  to  the  sea  (Aen.  7,  799-802). 

All  the  last  six  books  of  the  Aeneid  lure  to  such  epic 
wanderings,  for  Vergil  has  illumined  by  the  great  white 
reflector  of  epic  poetry  the  facts  and  traditions  of 
Rome's  early  history.  In  this  first  war  waged  for  the 
founding  of  Rome,  the  first  struggle  towards  Italian 
Unity,  Vergil  draws  his  pictures  of  allies  and  foes  alike 
with  the  same  vividness  and  comprehension,  playing  the 
light  of  his  imagination  over  the  early  history  so  that 
we  see  the  ranks  go  forth  to  battle  with  their  curious 
weapons  and  insignia,  we  know  something  of  the  gods 
they  worship,  the  towns  from  which  they  come,  the 
legends  which  their  families  cherish. 

In  Aeneid  VII,   a   "magnificent  pageant"   of  war 


218  Italy  Old  and  New 

passes  before  the  reader,  Mr.  Warde  Fowler  says  in 
his  illuminating  volume,  "The  Gathering  of  the  Clans," 
and  he  goes  on  to  show  that  the  object  of  the  seventh 
Aeneid  is  more  than  "the  obvious  motive  ...  to  move 
the  feeling  of  his  Italian  reader  as  he  sees  the  stately 
procession  of  Italian  warriors  pressing  before  him,  or 
perchance  to  fill  his  mind  with  pride  and  pleasure  at 
finding  among  them  the  ancient  representatives  of  his 
own  city  or  district"  (p.  27).  Vergil  "set  himself  to 
support  with  all  his  gifts  the  definite  Italian  policy  of 
Augustus,  at  a  time  when  Italy's  need  for  national  satis- 
faction and  hope  were  greater  than  they  had  ever  yet 
been."  In  the  execution  of  this  motive  "he  was  con- 
fronted by  serious  difficulties  which  made  his  task  a 
complex  one.  We  have  to  remember  that  all  the  peo- 
ples of  the  procession  were  the  enemies  of  the  Trojans 
and  summoned  to  resist  the  establishment  in  Italy  of 
Aeneas  and  his  host,  and  therein  also  to  resist  the  de- 
crees of  Fate  which  were  to  make  Rome  eventually  the 
mistress  of  Italy.  Here  was  a  difficulty  calling  for  an 
artist  of  consummate  skill  who  could  find  no  help  in  his 
Iliad.  Vergil  had  to  hold  firmly  together  the  sym- 
pathies of  Romans  and  Italians.  Some  one  may  ask, 
where  was  the  difficulty?  Surely  they  were  by  this  time 
united  in  feeling.  No,  if  that  had  really  been  so,  Au- 
gustus' policy  would  have  been  superfluous.  Italy  is 
not  a  country  that  lends  itself  easily  to  unification  as 
Italians  know  well  at  the  present  day;  and  only  twenty 
years  before  Vergil  was  born,  the  peoples  of  central 
Italy  had  been  engaged  in  deadly  strife  with  Rome,  and 
had  forced  her  to  treat  them  as  equals.  The  Italian 
policy  of  Augustus  was  in  truth  a  new  one,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  whatever  that  in  this  episode  Vergil  believed 
himself  to  be  aiding  it. 


H*-: 


PLOWING    IX    THE    SABINE    COUNTRY 


■ 

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THE  TEMPLE   OF  JUPITER    ANXUR    ABOVE    rERRA(  l\\ 


Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy       219 

"Vergil  meets  the  difficulties  of  his  plan  by  empha- 
sizing the  religious  destiny  of  Aeneas  and  Rome,  by 
showing  that  the  war  against  him  is  a  bad  war,  stirred 
up  by  the  unscrupulous  Juno  and  a  reckless  leader  and 
by  safeguarding  the  Italian  spirit  by  the  proud  honors 
given  to  local  traditions.  Cities,  rivers,  local  deities, 
and  many  local  touches  and  legends  combine  to  delight 
the  Italian  municipalis  who  will  be  reminded  of  the 
Homeric  catalogue  he  read  in  his  youth  and  feel  that 
here  'nescio  quid  maius  nascitur  Iliade.'  The  poet 
does  all  he  can  to  secure  variety,  to  make  this  city  or 
that  with  its  surrounding  region  stand  out  clearly  in 
the  picture,  and  take  the  right  coloring  for  the  delecta- 
tion of  its  descendants.  Then  how  splendid  and  martial 
is  the  tone  throughout,  how  perfect  the  consummation 
in  the  figures  of  Turnus  and  Camilla,  the  hero  and 
heroine  of  these  last  books !  It  is  with  the  perfection 
of  his  artistic  resources  that  Vergil  solves  his  greatest 
difficulty"  (pp.  28-31). 

Such  living  interpretation  of  the  seventh  book  made 
me  take  my  tiny  blue  pocket  Aeneid  to  many  a  site 
which  Vergil  had  made  memorable  for  me  and  perhaps 
you  will  indulgently  follow  my  whims  of  selection  as  I 
travel  among  the  Latins,  Etruscans,  Volscians  and 
Rutulians.  Vergil  himself  in  his  catalogue  followed  no 
geographical  order,  and  we  follow  him  for  the  spirit, 
not  for  topography. 

And  what  spirit  he  brings  out  of  some  small  town 
by  his  vignette  of  a  few  lines !  At  Tibur  he  makes  us 
recall  not  only  Horace's  praeceps  Anio  and  the  well- 
watered  orchards  in  the  Sabine  hills,  but  those  twin- 
brothers,  Catillus  and  Coras,  who  left  Tibur's  walls, 
sweeping  down  in  the  front  ranks  amid  the  dense  spears 


220  Italy  Old  and  New 

like  two  cloud-born  centaurs,  galloping  down  from 
some  high  mountain  peak,  while  great  forest  trees 
make  way  for  them  and  round  their  gallant  heads  cir- 
cle all  the  stories  of  great  twin  brethren,  Castor  and 
Pollux,  Romulus  and  Remus.  Tivoli-Tibur  today  shows 
no  prehistoric  ruins,  but  besides  the  great  beauty  of 
the  Anio  valley  the  city  now  displays  archaeological 
finds  of  Vergil's  time, — two  rooms  with  rich  marble 
pavement,  one  with  a  newly  discovered  seated  statue 
of  Augustus,  its  beautiful  marble  head  perfect. 

A  different  reward  is  offered  by  Praeneste's  steep 
heights, — Cyclopean  walls  and  a  magnificent  acropolis 
site  which  shows  the  power  of  the  city  that  was  a  proud 
rival  of  Rome  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  her  legions  are 
stamped  by  Vergil  as  rustic,  and  her  founder,  King 
Caeculus,  son  of  Vulcan,  was  born  (legend  avers) 
among  the  country-herds  and  found  on  a  hearth  (Aen. 
VII,  678-82).  Other  similar  Roman  slurs  on  the 
countrymen  of  provincial  Praeneste  are  explained  by  a 
visit  to  the  site  and  the  chance  to  see  how  from  her 
superb  citadel  Praeneste  could  command  the  trade 
route  down  the  valley  between  the  Alban  and  Volscian 
mountains.    Thus  does  topography  shape  jealousies. 

Vergil  writes  more  poetry  for  Egeria's  grove  and  no 
one  who  visits  Diana's  mirror-lake  at  Nemi  can  fail  to 
think  of  his  happy  ending  to  the  tragedy  of  Hippolytus : 
how  after  he  perished  by  his  step-mother's  guile  and 
satisfied  a  father's  vengeance,  mangled  by  terror- 
stricken  steeds,  he  came  again  to  the  starlight  and 
heaven's  upper  air,  recalled  by  the  Healer's  herbs  and 
Diana's  love.  In  a  secret  grove  the  devoted  goddess 
has  hidden  her  beloved  that  there  alone  in  Italian 
woods  he  may  live  on  unknown  under  the  new  name  of 
Virbius  (Aen.  VII,  761-77).     Diana's  munificent  be- 


Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy        221 

stowal  of  healing  and  immortality  on  her  love,  is  a 
happy  contrast  at  Nemi  for  the  terrible  religious  rite  of 

"The  priest  who  slew  the  slayer 
And  must  himself  be  slain." 

Such  stories  of  the  Tiburtine  twins,  Praeneste's  Fire- 
Son,  Diana's  votary,  are  slight  compared  to  the  tre- 
mendous pictures  of  Etruscans,  Volscians  and  Rutu- 
lians.  Mr.  Warde  Fowler  is  inclined  to  wonder  why 
in  the  pageant  of  Aeneid  VII,  Vergil  begins  the  war 
with  Mezentius,  but  this  arrangement  for  me  has  sig- 
nificance. The  Etruscans  were  the  greatest  rival  of 
Rome.  The  amalgamation  of  Etruscan  and  Roman 
civilization  had  to  be  explained.  Livy's  account  of 
Tanaquil  and  Tarquinius  coming  to  the  royal  power  is 
one  method.  Vergil  uses  another,  picturing  one  im- 
pious and  sacrilegious  Etruscan  chieftain  as  a  powerful 
enemy  of  the  Romans,  but  the  people  in  revolt  against 
him  joining  under  Tarchon  in  alliance  with  Aeneas, 
for  his  future  kingdom.  The  power  of  the  race  for 
evil  and  for  good  is  thus  exhibited.  As  I  visited  the 
great  Etruscan  sites,  Veii,  Caere,  Orvieto,  Faleri,  Cor- 
neto  and  as  I  studied  the  Etruscan  collections  in  the 
Museo  Archeologico  of  Florence  and  the  Gregoriano 
and  Papa  Giulia  in  Rome,  I  found  that  a  new  humanity 
was  infused  for  me  into  massive  city  walls,  dark  graves, 
bronze  armor,  heavy  statues  by  Vergil's  living  Etrus- 
can characters.  All  that  I  had  found  fearful,  myste- 
rious, domineering,  repellent  in  the  faces  of  human  be- 
ings and  gods  as  the  Etruscans  represented  them  in 
their  sculpture  is  reproduced  in  the  Mezentius  who  had 
no  reverence  for  gods  or  men  so  that  finally  even  his 
subjects  revolted  against  his  barbarities,  slew  his  fol- 


222  Italy  Old  and  New 

lowers,  iircd  his  palace.  But  the  magnificence  of  his 
type!  Lucifer  in  Milton's  hell  is  not  more  splendid 
than  this  sublime  outcast  whom  Vergil  with  a  wealth 
of  imagery  likens  to  a  cliff  which  endures  all  the  vio- 
lence of  the  sky  and  sea,  to  a  wild  boar  keeping  all  ene- 
mies at  bay,  to  a  hungry  lion  stalking  his  victim,  to  vast 
Orion  walking  through  mid-ocean  but  towering  above 
the  waves.  It  is  this  superman  who  is  broken  by  one 
simple  human  loss  so  that  he  cries  to  Aeneas:  "Why 
do  you  try  to  terrify  me  now  that  my  son  is  taken  from 
me  ?  That  was  the  only  way  in  which  you  could  destroy 
me."  After  that  father's  lament,  he  receives  the  sword 
in  his  throat. 

Tarchon,  the  leader  of  the  opposition  in  Agylla, 
Mezentius'  city,  is  almost  as  powerful, — he  is  the  light- 
ning flash  across  the  plain,  the  eagle  soaring  high  in 
heaven  with  its  victim, — and  he  has  the  courage  to  up- 
braid his  own  men  with  taunts  of  their  pusillanimity  and 
defection  and  dissipation  until  he  rallies  them  by  his 
personal  courage.  How  many  a  tomb  fresco  in  Cor- 
neto  illustrates  Tarchon's  description  of  the  Etruscan 
days ! 

"Why  do  we  carry  in  our  hands  the  sword  and  these 
vain  weapons?  You  are  not  so  languorous  in  love  or 
his  nocturnal  battles  or  when  the  curved  pipe  calls  to 
Bacchus'  dance.  Wait  then  for  feasts  and  goblets  on 
bounteous  boards,  for  this  is  your  love,  your  passion" 
(Aen.  XI,  735-9).  As  I  thought  of  these  epic  stories 
in  Corneto  and  Cerveteri,  the  feasts  and  the  dances 
painted  on  the  tomb-walls  became  those  of  living  per- 
sons, and  the  mighty  bronze  weapons  in  the  collections 
were  the  armor  of  epic  heroes.  Vergil  had  a  line  even 
for  mortuary  musings  in  the  Museums: 

"Yes,  and  a  time  shall  come  when  in  these  lands  the 


Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy        223 

farmer  cultivating  the  earth  with  his  crooked  plough 
shall  come  upon  spears  corroded  with  rust  and  with  his 
heavy  hoe  shall  strike  empty  helmets  and  shall  wonder 
at  great  bones  in  opened  sepulchres"  (Georg.  1,493-7). 

It  would  be  too  long  a  tale  to  tell  how  in  the  Rutulian 
country  I  followed  with  Vergil  the  vicissitudes  of  great 
Turnus  as  with  crimson  crest  upborne  by  chimera  and 
with  polished  shield  whereon  horned  Io  shone  he  flew 
forward  on  his  Thracian  steed  in  advance  of  his  col- 
umns, or  in  forced  retreat  like  savage  lion  kept  his  foes 
at  bay,  or  in  high  council  before  Latinus'  throne 
proudly  rejected  the  old  king's  prudence  and  Drances' 
pacifism,  or  in  the  conflict  accepted  on  equal  terms  and 
with  princely  welcome  the  maiden-warrior  Camilla,  or 
called  to  his  final  struggle,  his  friend  the  spear  that  had 
never  failed  him,  or  at  last,  before  his  fate,  as  one  who 
in  a  dream  makes  mighty  effort  but  cannot  move  or 
speak  one  word,  he  sensed  his  doom  under  Aeneas' 
weapon.  Ardea  becomes  more  than  a  name  from  such 
a  son  and  'twere  no  wonder  that  a  goddess  sister  left 
heaven  to  fly  to  his  aid. 

In  the  Forum  Romanum  in  the  precinct  of  Juturna, 
the  goddess  who  watches  over  pools  and  singing  streams, 
I  turned  from  her  bubbling  spring  to  the  little  chapel 
where  on  fragment  of  marble  entablature  one  reads 
IVTVRNAI  and  where  on  marble  altar  in  the  figures 
of  warrior  and  of  woman  side  by  side  imagination  pic- 
tures Turnus  and  his  devoted  sister,  Juturna.  In  such 
comradeship  she  stood  by  him  as  his  charioteer,  guid- 
ing his  steeds  through  the  midst  of  the  enemy  until  the 
raucous  cries  and  whirring  wings  of  the  ominous  Fury 
in  the  air  destroyed  her  hopes  and  forced  from  her  lips 
bitter  lament  because  Jupiter  would  grant  no  further 


224  Italy  Old  and  New 

recompense  for  her  lost  virginity  than  an  immortality 
forever  sorrowful  without  her  brother. 

A  word  about  another  woman  whose  fate  was  inter- 
woven with  Turnus'  fortunes  and  whose  fame  makes  the 
Volscians  live  for  us.  I  thought  of  Camilla  as  I  stood 
on  Norba's  superb  height  within  the  massive  city  walls 
that  show  the  early  Volscian  power.  But  this  was  not 
her  birthplace.  It  was  from  Priverno  back  in  the  valley 
of  the  Amasenus  that  her  father  fled  into  exile,  carry- 
ing his  baby  girl,  and  it  was  across  this  river  that  he 
launched  his  spear  with  the  babe  bound  to  it,  dedicating 
her  forever  to  Diana  if  the  goddess  saved  her  life.  But 
in  these  mountains  the  father  reared  his  tiny  Amazon 
and  here  in  dress  of  tiger  skin  she  hurled  her  little 
darts  and  with  her  sling  struck  down  the  birds.  No 
wonder,  after  such  an  open-air  childhood,  she  was  fit 
to  lead  the  squadron  of  Volscian  horsemen  to  Turnus' 
side,  a  warrior-maid  whose  fingers  had  never  twirled 
the  distaff  or  held  the  needle,  a  maid  strong  to  endure 
battles  and  yet  so  light  of  foot  that  she  could  have 
flown  over  a  field  of  ungarnered  grain  without  bending 
it  and  skimmed  the  wave's  crest  without  sinking.  Eas- 
ily she  whirled  the  battle-axe  over  her  head  or  sped 
the  arrows  from  her  golden  bow.  Alas!  The  pity 
that  the  gleam  of  a  foe's  golden  armor  and  a  woman's 
love  of  such  booty  could  lure  her  to  the  death  that  sent 
an  uproar  to  the  golden  stars,  destroyed  Volscians  and 
routed  Rutulians. 

Such  are  some  of  the  varied  and  proud  pictures  in 
Vergil's  war  pageant  by  which  he  made  appeal  to  the 
imagination  of  various  peoples  and  supported  Au- 
gustus' work  for  Italian  unity.  He  had  a  difficult  task 
when,  with  enemies  made  so  valiant,  he  essayed  descrip- 
tion of  Aeneas'  allies  and  the  early  builders  of  Rome, 


Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy        225 

but  his  picture  of  father  and  son  in  Palatium  has  a 
poignant  charm.  The  place  to  read  the  story  is  on  the 
southwestern  part  of  the  Palatine,  the  Cermalus,  where 
lie  the  oldest  ruins  found  on  the  hill,  in  the  very  district 
to  which  tradition  assigned  them.  This  network  of  old 
gray-green  walls,  drains,  cisterns,  graves,  stone  circles 
that  perhaps  once  were  foundations  for  thatched  huts 
cannot  be  identified,  much  less  labelled  today,  yet  fancy 
would  see  in  them  traces  of  the  site  where  an  Evander 
ruled  and  in  the  ancient  roadway  up  the  hill-slope  would 
find  the  stairs  of  Cacus,  that  robber  fire-god  whose  en- 
counter with  Hercules  the  old  king  Evander  narrated  to 
his  guest.  To  us  too  here  Evander  may  tell  the  story 
and  point  out  the  traditional  spot  of  the  great  grove 
where  Romulus  made  his  Asylum,  the  Lupercal,  the 
precinct  dedicated  to  Lycaean  Pan,  the  cattle  grazing 
in  the  Forum,  and  across  the  valley  the  Capitol,  a  place 
full  of  religious  awe,  not  then  a  temple  topped  with 
gold,  yet  a  god's  home  (Aen.  VIII,  343-350).  It  is 
with  thoughts  of  Evander  too  that  on  the  Palatine  of 
today  we  approach  the  capanna  italica,  the  little 
thatched  hut  which  Commendatore  Boni  has  had 
erected  as  a  model  of  early  Italic  life  and  as  we  look  at 
its  foundation  ring  of  stones,  its  straw  roof,  its  low 
door,  we  hear  Evander's  words  to  Aeneas,  the  eternal 
expression  of  Italian  rustic  hospitality: 

"Dare,  my  guest,  to  scorn  riches,  shape  yourself  also  to  be 
worthy  of  deity  and  come  graciously  to  my  poor  fortune." 

(Aen.  VIII,  364-5.) 

It  was  such  a  host  who  sent  his  adored  son,  Pallas, 
to  share  Aeneas'  fortunes  in  battle  and  when  the  brave 
young  warrior  fell,  it  was  the  thought  of  that  devoted 
father's  loss  that  dealt  the  most  poignant  blow  of  the 


226  Italy  Old  and  New 

war  to  Aeneas'  soul  and  armed  his  merciless  hand 
against  Turnus,  his  slayer,  in  the  closing  conflict  of  the 
Epic.  The  story  of  Evander  and  Pallas  stands  out  in 
all  time — never  more  clearly  than  in  our  last  terrible 
years — as  a  perfect  expression  of  the  glory  and  the  pity 
of  death  in  war  for  the  Young,  the  tragedy  and  the 
fortitude  of  the  sorrowful  Old  at  home. 

On  the  Palatine  Hill  today,  it  is  not  only  of  little 
Palatium,  Evander's  fine  hospitality  and  heroic  forti- 
tude that  Vergil  makes  us  think.  Among  the  magnifi- 
cent ruins  of  the  lately  uncovered  Augustan  palace,  the 
thought  of  the  growth  of  Rome  down  to  Augustus' 
time  is  brought  before  us  by  the  poet  who  so  sincerely 
and  staunchly  celebrated  the  work  of  his  Emperor  for 
the  Roman  world.  Archaeologists  cannot  certify  for 
us  on  which  of  these  temple  sites  Augustus  erected  the 
great  shrine  of  solid  marble  to  his  patron  god  Apollo, 
but  perhaps  it  was  here  on  the  south,  overlooking  that 
stretch  of  land  where  Carducci  has  pictured  Rome  her- 
self,— 

"la  dea 

Roma  qui  dorme. 

Poggiata  il  capo  al  Palatino  augusto, 

tra'l  Celio  aperte  e  l'Aventin  le  braccia, 

per  la  Capena  i  forti  omeri  stende 

a  l'Appia  via." 

At  any  rate,  before  this  temple  Vergil  pictures,  on 
the  shield  of  Aeneas,  Augustus  at  the  beginning  of  his 
reign  of  peace.  "Caesar,  riding  through  the  walls  of 
Rome  in  triple  triumph,  to  the  gods  of  Italy  offered  his 
immortal  votive  gift,  three  hundred  great  shrines 
throughout  the  city.  With  happiness,  with  games  and 
with  applause  the  roads  reechoed.  In  all  the  temples 
were  bands  of  matrons,  in  all  were  altars,  and  before 


Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy        227 

the  altars  slain  victims  strewed  the  ground.  He  him- 
self seated  on  the  white  threshold  of  shining  Phoebus 
received  the  gifts  of  the  nations  and  hung  them  on 
proud  doors.  In  long  pageant  advanced  the  conquered 
peoples  of  many  tongues,  of  many  garbs  and  weapons" 
(Aen.  VIII,  714-23).  From  south  and  east  and  west 
they  stand  before  the  victor  of  Actium  in  the  center  of 
the  great  picture — shield  of  Rome's  history  and  here, 
with  the  close  association  of  Apollo  and  Augustus  at 
the  shrine,  Vergil  seems  to  be  elaborating  the  idea 
which  he  stated  so  simply  in  the  first  eclogue : 

Deus  nobis  haec  otfa  fecit, 
"It  is  a  god  that  brought  us  this  peace." 

Augustus  had  erected  a  temple  of  marble  to  com- 
memorate Apollo's  aid  in  establishing  that  end  of  all 
wars  which  Vergil  makes  the  god  predict  to  Ascanius 
under  the  rule  of  his  house  (Aen.  IX,  642-3).  Vergil 
has  built  here  in  the  Aeneid  that  temple  of  poetry  which 
in  the  third  Georgic  he  had  designed,  and  in  the  center 
he  has  placed  his  Caesar  and  he  possesses  the  shrine. 
The  worship  offered  to  him  is  to  the  Sovereign,  almost 
to  the  god,  who  has  established  peace  for  the  Roman 
world.  This  is  what  Jupiter  prophesies  as  his  fame  in 
the  first  Aeneid  (286-94)  : 

"Trojan  Aeneas  shall  be  born  of  this  fair  line  and  he 
shall  bound  his  Empire  by  the  Ocean,  his  fame  by  the 
stars.  .  .  .  Then  wars  shall  cease  and  the  terrible 
years  shall  be  softened  .  .  .  with  close-fitting  bolts 
of  iron  the  dread  portals  of  war  shall  be  barred."  It 
is  this  reign  of  peace  that  again  is  foretold  by  Anchises 
in  Aeneid  six  (791-4)  :  "This  is  the  man,  this  is  he  .  .  . 
Augustus  Caesar,  scion  of  a  god,  who  shall  restore  the 


228  Italy  Old  and  New 

golden  age  to  Latium  in  the  lands  where  Saturn  once 
reigned." 

We  know  from  the  Monumentum  Ancyranum,  the 
Emperor's  own  account  of  his  reign,  how  anxious  he 
was  to  be  considered  an  emperor  of  reconstruction,  em- 
phasizing the  fact  that  he  had  waged  only  righteous 
wars  (C.  26),  that  he  had  closed  the  Temple  of  Janus 
three  times  (C.  13),  and  that  the  Senate  had  decreed  in 
his  honor  the  erection  of  the  Altar  of  Peace  (C.  12), 
and  Cassius  Dio  assures  us  that  of  all  the  honor  the 
Senate  bestowed  upon  him,  he  was  pleased  most  by  the 
fact  that  the  senators  closed  the  gates  of  Janus,  imply- 
ing that  all  their  wars  had  ceased  (51,  19-20).  To  my 
mind  this  is  further  evidence  of  what  I  have  tried  to 
show  in  another  place  ("An  Inspired  Message  in  the 
Augustan  Poets"  A.  J.  P.  1918),  that  Vergil  as  a  loyal 
supporter  of  the  new  regime  consciously  sought  to  em- 
body in  his  poetry  the  ideals  of  the  Emperor  and  as  a 
great  and  patriotic  poet-laureate  was  no  less  an  asset 
to  Augustus  than  the  warrior  Agrippa.  The  epics  of 
Vergil  are  a  more  enduring  and  magnificent  monument 
to  the  peace  of  Augustus  than  that  Ara  Pacis  Augustae 
before  whose  beautiful  fragments  in  the  Terme  Museo 
in  Rome  we  stand  with  such  awe. 

For  poetry  is  the  monument  more  lasting  than  bronze 
or  marble  and  it  is  not  without  significance  to  my  mind 
that  one  word  in  the  Latin  language,  vates,  carried  the 
meaning  of  bard  and  seer.  The  true  poet  who  sees 
into  the  heart  of  his  nation's  life  writes  with  a  vision 
that  makes  his  work  prophetic  and  vital  for  all  time. 
For  Italy  today  Vergil  is  deeply  true  in  his  songs  of  an 
after-war  time  when  the  people  must  go  back  to  the 
land  and  make  it  yield  its  fruits  for  the  nation,  the  race 
must  increase,  Italian  unity  must  be  attained  by  con- 


Vergil  as  a  Guide  in  Italy       229 

scious  effort,  and  peace,  hardly  won,  must  be  preserved. 
In  the  Piazza  Venezia  in  Rome  on  November  4,  1920, 
the  anniversary  of  Vittorio  Veneto,  Italy's  final  victory 
in  the  World  War,  I  saw  the  regiments  of  the  army  and 
navy  sweep  up  the  white  steps  of  the  monument  of  Vit- 
torio Emmanuele  to  present  their  banners  to  the  King 
before  the  Altar  of  the  Country  that  he  for  Italy  might 
decorate  the  victorious  tricolor,  and  as  the  aeroplanes 
circled  overhead  and  the  mothers  of  combatants  placed 
a  golden  wreath  upon  the  altar  in  memory  of  the  fallen, 
I  felt  with  the  great  crowd  in  the  Piazza  that  the 
strength  of  Italy  which  Vergil  pictured  before  the  Em- 
peror Augustus  on  the  Palatine  was  here  born  anew, 
consecrated  by  the  blood  of  her  dead,  and  assured  by 
the  devotion  of  her  sons.  We  Americans  in  our  young 
nation  often  fail  in  understanding  Italy  because  we  have 
no  conception  of  the  tremendous  and  steadying  power 
that  great  traditions  of  thousands  of  years  of  history 
have  upon  the  descendants  of  Romulus. 

If  I  may  be  pardoned  one  last  vagary,  a  postscript 
on  the  delights  of  pursuing  the  idea  of  the  continuity 
of  literary  experience,  I  would  hint  to  you  the  joys  I 
had  with  Vergil-lovers  of  other  times.  In  the  Lauren- 
tian  Library  in  Florence  I  was  allowed  to  enjoy  the 
priceless  treasure  of  their  fourth  century  manuscript  of 
Vergil,  to  read  its  clear  black  letters  and  brood  over 
the  painstaking  devotion  that  made  so  fair  a  copy.  In 
the  Vatican  Library  in  Rome  I  hung  over  the  case 
where  pages  from  the  fourth  and  fifth  century  manu- 
scripts are  exhibited,  delighting  in  their  clear  capitals 
and  quaint  illustrations. 

Then  in  an  antiquarian's  shop  in  Rome  I  found  my 
own  Vergil.  About  the  size  of  a  Webster's  unabridged 
dictionary,  it  contains  the  major  works  of  Vergil  and 


230  Italy  Old  and  New 

26  minor  poems,  some  wholly  new  to  me,  and  the  com- 
mentators, Servius,  Donatus,  and  Ascensius,  all  listed 
under  a  dedication  to  the  Muses.  More  than  the  de- 
light it  affords  me  by  its  beautiful  paging  and  black 
print,  is  the  joy  of  its  illustrations,  the  quaint  wood- 
cuts which  attest  the  delight  inspired  in  some  artist  of 
the  early  fifteenth  century  by  the  poems  that  I  too  have 
loved.  My  ending  shall  be  these  links  of  affection  be- 
tween reader  and  poet  which  join  generation  to  genera- 
tion in  the  common  bond  of  culture. 


DATE  DUE 


MAY     (: 





tttfaa 


MAYl 


m 


8  1971  1 


SEP?  A 


1988  H 


MAY  l  2  IWfl 


GAYLORD 


PRINTED  IN  U    S 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA       001  389  848        1 


